🚀 go-pugleaf

	I made the mistake of contacting IDT of Hackensack NJ for Internet
access. I saw their ad locally in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a
generally respected major newspaper. The ad is the one they run all over the
country. $15 a month unlimited connect time. $29 for PPP, 16 MB disk space,
WWW server etc. and unlimited connect time at 28.8! ISDN commingle soon.
Sounds like a fairly good deal when similar accounts are $35 and up.

BUT

	And that is a big BUT. The deal isn't so great when you examine what
you are getting into. First I did a search of the WWW after calling them and
giving them my credit card number (BIG MISTAKE!). These guys have a horrible
reputation on the Net! I found WEB pages not by them explaining what their
service was like but page after page complaining how crooked they were!
Looking carefully at the content of these pages I was able to determine that
the principals in this outfit were Jewish. It is folks like this that give
such fine people a bad name all over the world! Why would they even bother to
shut down their operation for the Jewish holidays if they don't really
practice their religion from day to day?

	It turns out that when you sign up with them they really don't own
equipment and POPs in various cities but they are merely reselling access
from some little hokiest ISP wannabe who could not find his own customers
because their service is so flaky. One allegation was made by a former
employee that IDT ran the ads all over without even  knowing if such service
was even available in the city they target ted. Only after enough people
called saying they wanted to sign up did IDT contact by phone the various
likely providers to see if they would like to have a batch of new customers
for a flat fee.

Atlanta's worst ISPs!

	Wow would this be the case in Atlanta? I had already run into such
providers such as the notorious PING who lied like all get out on the phone
but the service didn't begin to match what they said they had. They went
bankrupt. I had a friend who was a fellow ham who did UNIX programming for
them and he quietly tipped me of as to what the operation was like behind the
scenes. Another 'service provider' that was really slow was a guy selling Net
connection through two Mac PCs, one was the firewall the other was actually
connected to the Internet. He had such a poor connection that it took forever
to get messages and mail. 

IDT's connect at 28.8?

		IDT's Atlanta address is suspiciously similar to this later
fellow I mentioned. When one calls the number (770 451 3753)  there is a BBS
there with an alternate InterNet login option. The BBS says that they have 24
dial up lines. Ha CRL.COM had over 64 lines about a year ago for the same
area  and they have added more since then. CRL.COM is a nobody in Internet
access in the Atlanta dialing area. They seldom advertize as they have all
the customers they can support on that POP without degrading the service
(ieee busy signals all the time etc.) Most ISPs I have checked have decent
28.8 modems and I get a 28.8 or 26.2 connect virtually every time. On IDT's
line I got  several connect 24s, 21s and as low as a 19 for connect rates. My
current modem has a large alpha numeric display of all kinds of connection
data that is updated every fraction of a second. I can even see when the
signal is split at two completely different baud rates when tx is slower then
rd since lines split directionally in the central office. Not all modems can
split the baud rate, but all the better ones do now. I suspect that the POP
IDT contracted for is using the older modems that can be bought dirt cheap
before decent 28.8s were available. Does IDT know about this? I doubt it.

Trying to reach a human at IDT other then a salesman.

	I tired calling tech support (1-201-883-2000) to see what they had to
say about these modems and their so called service. They never answered the
phone. All I ever got was a recording that they had more calls then they
could handle and would I call another day. I tried calling IDT head offices
to discuss their 'service' and could never get through. After reading about
horror stories of $50 phone bills just trying to cancel the account with IDT
I decided to try something different. I called MCI and explained I wanted to
speak to a human at IDT. I mentioned that they were selling phone service in
a manner to undercut MCI's own service and I heard many allegations of FRAUD
on the InterNet. Did that make them angry? <grin> MCI put the call through
for me and told me that I would not be billed for any of it until they
verified a human was speaking to me. It was a good thing because when MCI
connected there was an in terminal recording of "all our staff is busy please
hold and you call will be answered in the order it was received". After an
hour of sick music and with that message every so often I finally was
connected to the ONLY HUMAN in IDT billing that morning. ONLY ONE!
Incredible. No wonder they never answer their calls to accounting! MCI took a
big hit on that call in lost revenue! <big grin>

Contrast IDT with Decent ISPs

	CRL isn't cheap for PPP. CRL like any decent ISP does listen to their
customers. They fix service problems, billing problems, etc. with a human
touch even though they there are a major provider of Internet Services in the
USA. They keep in touch via email, fax and even the occasional phone call to
see how things are going. The latter is because they often do not understand
what my email or fax was about and they find it easier to just pick up the
phone and speak to another human. <grin> Other ISPs have been known to do the
same thing. If you are lucky enough to find one, STAY WITH THEM. They are a
rare breed as the scam artists and the quick buck people jump onto the
Internet bandwagon. Is IDT one of the latter? I don't want to stay around any
longer to find out for sure. Where there is smoke there may well be a fire
and I don't want to get burnt. Do you? Will someone get so mad at IDT that
they will get a federal criminal investigation going for wire fraud? I am not
that mad yet. I haven't seen my credit card bill. It should have no reference
to IDT on it! If it does ....

Have you found the best ISP? Have you been burnt by one?
Follow ups welcome.


Ki4je
NT - FEEL THE POWER NOT THE PAIN.