[ILUG] [OT] ISPs again (aaaargh)

[Matthew French]

I know this question comes up often enough, but I cannot find anything on
www.linux.ie to address my needs.

My requirement is this: my wife likes to dial in to check her mail during
the day. After a while this gets very expensive with minimum call charges
most probably accounting for the bulk of the cost. I do plan to have my new
firewall do dial up access once an hour to reduce the number of calls, but
it is still going to be expensive.

Sometimes she will spend a long time online, like at the moment where she is
working on her thesis.

It would seem to be cheaper to go with a paid service, but if I have to pay
the 6c minimum call charge regardless it may not make any difference. I
would rather not pay Eircon for overpriced Internet access, so I have asked
IOL for a registration form. But they have just ignored me and I dislike
organisations that do not talk to me more than organisations that overcharge
me.

Another problem is the "imminent" arrival of cable/ADSL. This is complicated
by the fact that I stay in Maynooth. It is an 01 area code, but NTL have yet
to provide a service this far out. We do have Chorus who are going to roll
out cable internet in the greater Dublin area "any time now". And of course
we will get Eircom's ADSL offering some time next century. Esat's ADSL team
seems to be holding out to see how badly Eircom get burnt before offering
their own service?

For my needs, a 32kb always on connection would most probably be sufficient.
I am thinking of setting up a local 802.11b wireless ethernet co-operative
so we can share bandwidth, but still need sufficient interest to make it
viable. And because we are renting, it will be difficult for me to run
cables[1] all over the place.

Should I just go for the paid Eircon connection and wait for the promised 60
million e-infrastructure investment. (Cute. With elections looming, the
politicians are suddenly interested in solving the broadband problem.)

Or should I stick with the "free" connection...

Any thoughts or suggestions?

- Matthew

[1] How ironic. Wireless networking requires even more cabling.




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