🚀 go-pugleaf

:In article <72ut2g$gt0$1@shell3.ba.best.com>,
:Jef Poskanzer  <jef@acme.com> wrote:
:>I was looking at www.pair.com and they have a real attractive deal:
:>80MB disk, 400MB/day bandwidth, full CGI, $29.95/month.  Doesn't include
:>dialup but I rarely use that on Best anyway.  Pair gets good marks
:>from friends who have accounts there.  I like Best but I would *love*
:>to double the size of my online photography exhibit while paying less
:>money (I currently pay Best $45/month for 50MB).
:>
:>How about it Best, is it time to re-examine pricing?
:>---
:>Jef
:>
:>         Jef Poskanzer  jef@acme.com  http://www.acme.com/jef/

    Nope.  Basic internet infrastructure bandwidth costs have not changed
    much in the last two years.

    Just from browsing their web site, www.pair.com looks interesting.  Except
    for the business about getting T1's to smaller players, I think they 
    have a workable business model.  However, they are only using one major
    backbone link (UUNet).  Their Digex and SAVVIS links are little better
    then private peering links.

    They are trading on reliability to get more lower-cost bandwidth.  I'd
    bet that their margins are about the same as ours even with the
    double bandwidth account allowance.  It isn't a bad thing, necessarily,
    but our concentratiion is more heavily weighted towards reliability. 
    If one of our transit T3's goes down, our traffic will rebalance with 
    the customer noticing much.  If Pair's alternet T3 went down, they'd be
    in more trouble.

    From a purely demographic/economics point of view, I think Pair has missed
    the boat a bit.  Most clients who go above 200 MBytes/day have more money
    to play with.  Our prices are better matched to our clients then theirs
    are to theirs.  Pair is also selling a 100 MB/day account for $5/month.  
    This has the potential to kill them when porn clients catch on.  They
    haven't learned the 'bandwidth costs money' lesson yet.

    I do think their disk space allowance is supportable, though.  I've been
    wanting BEST to up the disk space allowance but haven't had any luck so
    far.  Memory prices are getting low enough that we can actually start using
    18G drives (putting enough memory in the machines to offset the higher
    bandwidth requirement with caching).

					-Matt

-- 
    Matthew Dillon  Engineering, HiWay Technologies, Inc. & BEST Internet
                    Communications
    <dillon@best.net> (Please include original email in any response)

In article <72ut2g$gt0$1@shell3.ba.best.com>, Jef Poskanzer  <jef@acme.com> wrote:
>I was looking at www.pair.com and they have a real attractive deal:
>80MB disk, 400MB/day bandwidth, full CGI, $29.95/month.  Doesn't include
>dialup but I rarely use that on Best anyway.  Pair gets good marks
>from friends who have accounts there.  I like Best but I would *love*
>to double the size of my online photography exhibit while paying less
>money (I currently pay Best $45/month for 50MB).

Hah! I wouldn't bet on Pair. I have great confidence in best.com's security,
along with their impressive 25mb web space at $30 (I pay less because I've
been here longer) with freewheeling CGI, which still outpaces the best
offers I've seen (and I do shop around) out there. That and 20 megs of
shell space too? Bah. I'll stick with Best. If you really need space though
I guess Pair gets ya what ya want...but again, what is their security like?
I would, if I were you, hang back and wait a year or so and watch and see
if they get majorly hacked. Not to say best.com is invulnerable but these
guys have balls of steel and apparently the security muscle to back it up.

Best.com should always reconsider their pricing, but not just because *one*
company comes out with a cheaper bigger deal...


-- Steve
"Save Our Series" Central! 
http://www.clandenial.org

In article <72v86h$qmb$1@flea.best.net>, Matt Dillon <dillon@best.net> wrote:
>I've been wanting BEST to up the disk space allowance but haven't
>had any luck so far.  Memory prices are getting low enough that we
>can actually start using 18G drives

Yes.  I think this is the one area where technology suggests an update
to Best's offering.

Matt Dillon <dillon@best.net> wrote:

:     I do think their disk space allowance is supportable, though.  I've been
:     wanting BEST to up the disk space allowance but haven't had any luck so
:     far.  Memory prices are getting low enough that we can actually start using
:     18G drives (putting enough memory in the machines to offset the higher
:     bandwidth requirement with caching).

I think that Best will really have to increase disk allowance to remain
competitive - the prices charged now are simply outrageous.  I moved my
desaparecidos account from Best to CI-Host, and ended up saving $13 a month
and getting 7 times more disk space (in a site which is graphic-intensive
but still relatively low-bandwith).

Of course I moved it because of the Verio acquisition, but I think I would
have gotten around to do it in any case.

Margarita Lacabe - Derechos - marga@derechos.org - http://www.derechos.org
____________________________________________________________________________

           "It's not the repression by the bad people that hurts, 
                     it's the silence of the good" - MLK

paladinNOSPAM@best.com (remove NOSPAM to reply):
}Best.com should always reconsider their pricing, but not just because *one*
}company comes out with a cheaper bigger deal...

Pair networks has been around for three years, and their Webmaster
offer I reported is not new.  There are many other ISPs with deals
better than Best's, but most of them are rinky dink operations.
Pair is not.
---
Jef

         Jef Poskanzer  jef@acme.com  http://www.acme.com/jef/
    "Carob works on the principle that, when mixed with the right
  combination of fats and sugar, it can duplicate chocolate in color
       and texture.  Of course, the same can be said of dirt."

>:     18G drives (putting enough memory in the machines to offset the higher
>:     bandwidth requirement with caching).
>
>Of course I moved it because of the Verio acquisition, but I think I would
>have gotten around to do it in any case.

What was it about the Verio acquisition that made you do that in and of
itself?


-- Steve, something evil afoot that I don't know about?

delete "NOSPAM" <paladin@NOSPAM.best.com> wrote:
:>:     18G drives (putting enough memory in the machines to offset the higher
:>:     bandwidth requirement with caching).
:>
:>Of course I moved it because of the Verio acquisition, but I think I would
:>have gotten around to do it in any case.

: What was it about the Verio acquisition that made you do that in and of
: itself?

The fact that service at every other ISP that Verio has bought is reported
to have gone to hell.

Margarita Lacabe - Derechos - marga@derechos.org - http://www.derechos.org
____________________________________________________________________________

                    la represion se alimenta del silencio

In article <72vjs7$ln9$1@shell3.ba.best.com>,
Jef Poskanzer  <jef@acme.com> wrote:
>paladinNOSPAM@best.com (remove NOSPAM to reply):
>}Best.com should always reconsider their pricing, but not just because *one*
>}company comes out with a cheaper bigger deal...
>
>Pair networks has been around for three years, and their Webmaster
>offer I reported is not new.  There are many other ISPs with deals
>better than Best's, but most of them are rinky dink operations.
>Pair is not.


I came to Best for the reliability.

I was not misinformed.


	Bob O`Bob

-- 
+ email replies without this line will be discarded le4m5tvt (expires 28dec98) +

"On the internet, *everyone* will have their own fifteen minutes of blame."

obob@best.com (Bob O`Brien):
}I came to Best for the reliability.
}I was not misinformed.

Yes yes yes.  No one is questioning Best's reliability.  People were
questioning Pair's reliability, hence my previous post.  If distinguishing
these two concepts is too difficult for you, perhaps you should hold
off on posting.
---
Jef

         Jef Poskanzer  jef@acme.com  http://www.acme.com/jef/
  "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
                    rearranging their prejudices."
                           -- William James