[GLLUG] Broadband/cable provider [OT]

[Matthew Walster]

On 6 March 2013 06:45, Christopher Hunter <cehunter at gb-x.org> wrote:

> The sad news is that Be has been bought by Sky.  That's very close to
> being as bad as connecting to Virgin-on-the-ridiculous (the only other
> local option).
>

To be bluntly honest, I'm getting sick and tired of your relentless attacks
on Virgin. I've taken Virgin services at three different properties over
the past 10 years, and never had a noticeable outage except for when *I*
had inadvertently caused it. They didn't charge me for the call out on that
matter either. I've never experienced anything like the congestion I've
experienced on a DSL product.


> Incidentally, Virgin now have the most restrictive download rules I've
> ever seen. Download a couple of distributions in one day, and you'll
> have your connection throttled for at least 24 hours - often longer.
> They also sell your connection statistics to advertising companies and
> restrict access to over a third of the web.
>

Why would you regularly download a couple of Linux distributions? Of
course, if you're using that as a euphemism for downloading with
BitTorrent, screw you. BitTorrent is incredibly bad for the internet,
indiscriminatingly downloading without any care for network design that
might lower the bandwidth requirements for the initial uploader, but
flooding links for the network providers. What's worse is that while it
would be not terribly hard to develop an assistance platform to bring
BitTorrent data closer to the downloader, to the outside eye it's full of
people downloading copyright-infringing data. The overwhelming majority of
people who say "but I'm downloading legal Linux ISOs" aren't, and it gives
a terrible name to both the BitTorrent community and the Linux community.

Don't be an idiot. Don't associate BitTorrent with Linux. Use a CDN --
there are plenty of services like kernel.org, mirrorservice.org, tens of
mirrors in the UK of both CD images and packages. There's no excuse to use
BitTorrent on a personal network.


> A&A charge a LOT compared to BeThere!
>

A&A provide a very different service to BeThere. FTTC DSL with a 150GB
download limit for £45/month, with a company that actually knows how to run
a network and takes the side of the customer in getting their BT lines
fixed? Worth every penny.

M
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