🚀 go-pugleaf

> 10) And lastly, I am looking for an ISP that does not have the management
>        style of a lemonade stand.hahahahaha....

 Seriously that was a good one

Chet <murray@en.com> wrote:

>I have finally had it with en.com's poor service and insulting customer 
>service.  Can anyone suggest a local ISP?

<snip>

Try APK.  Excellent service and good, reliable connections. On the
rare occasion of a problem you can always talk to a real person on the
phone or, alternatively, you can send them a e-mail.  If they're being
lazy they'll wait almost twenty minutes to answer your query.  Imagine
that!

You can find them at:

http://www.apk.net/apk
info@apk.net

No, I'm not affiliated with APK in any way, other than being a
satisfied customer.

-J 

                                                        

--

John Knopp
jdk@apk.net

Chet <murray@en.com> wrote:

>I have finally had it with en.com's poor service and insulting customer 
>service.  Can anyone suggest a local ISP?
>

>Chet Faliszek
>
>ps. Please, en.com cheerleaders, keep the lies in your pants.

I can heartily recommend APK (see www.apk.net). I've used them for
about two years total time now, and have been extremely pleased. I
left them for a while about 18 months ago because I wanted ISDN, and
they didn't have it at that time. I went with Interramp. I thought
that a national ISP would be better than a local one. (More money,
more support, etc) Not true! I came back to APK because I was getting
the same kind of service from Interramp you explained in your message.
I've been with APK again, for the last 4-6 months or so, and the
service is great, price is right, etc. AFAIK, they _do_ have a timeout
on their lines. The system will disconnect after (some number of
minutes) of total inactivity. I don't think this is unreasonable, as
it resets the line for the rest of us if someone inadvertently walks
off and leaves his computer logged on. I've found that while using the
Net in a normal fashion, one doesn't get logged off.

grant

Yes, go with APK. I've been with them for literally YEARS, and they
are great. Good service, good customer service. Tons of newsgroups.
Yeah, they do time-outs, but this is actually reasonable so others
like me don't have to get busy signals. New lines added all the time.
Etc., etc., etc. Try 'em you'll like it. You get to have personal web
pages.

Anyway.

Chet <murray@en.com> wrote:

>I have finally had it with en.com's poor service and insulting customer 
>service.  Can anyone suggest a local ISP?

>This is what I am looking for.

>1) Not conintually busy. (This is the only thing en.com doesn't do.)
>2) Does not consistently drop carrier after 10 minutes.
>3) Does not lose the newsfeed on a weekly basis as well as all the 
>newsgroups
>   being reset to zero.
>4) They would not rather send you mail about their TV appearences than 
>send     you mail that the news-server will be going down for 12 hours.
>5) As well as, I don't want want-ads and other junk mail generated by my
>   provider consistently being sent to me.
>6) Have to call 5-6 times to a ringing modem before one will connect 
>(this is
>   as bad as busy lines)
>7) Does not take 3-5 minutes to post a message to the newsgroups.
>8) Has an expiration date of longer than 3 days on news aticales (i think 
>      they fixed this...)
>9) And ISP that actually answers the users quesitons when the post to
>   a problem board (ie: en.problems)
>10) And lastly, I am looking for an ISP that does not have the management 
>       style of a lemonade stand.

>I would deeply appreciate it if anyone can suggest a provider, I want to 
>change this week.


>Chet Faliszek

>ps. Please, en.com cheerleaders, keep the lies in your pants.

In article <3155CCCB.93F@en.com>, Chet <murray@en.com> wrote:
>I have finally had it with en.com's poor service and insulting customer 
>service.  Can anyone suggest a local ISP?

Why not apk.net?  The data number is 241-7541.

>This is what I am looking for.
>
>1) Not conintually busy. (This is the only thing en.com doesn't do.)

apk.net has been constantly adding modems lately.

>2) Does not consistently drop carrier after 10 minutes.

You will get timed out on any ISP after a few minutes of inactivity.
Are you sure that that's not the problem?

>6) Have to call 5-6 times to a ringing modem before one will connect 
>(this is
>   as bad as busy lines)

I think all ISP's go through stages of bad modems, but 5 or 6 times
is excessive, IMO.

>9) And ISP that actually answers the users quesitons when the post to
>   a problem board (ie: en.problems)

Well en.com lost my business before they had it because they never bothered
answering one simple question.  They were dumb enough to send me bills
for 8 months before they called and I told them, AGAIN, that I did not
have a login id or a paid account with them.  What was really funny is
that the guy on the phone did not even realize that I was getting those
bills and not paying them, let alone I was doing it on purpose to see
how long they would keep paying postage even though I had told them I
was no longer interested in an account with them EVER.

Not only that, but the bill always stated the same amount every month,
and always thanked me for my business.  I guess they have all of that
computer equipment, yet can't run a simple spreadsheet or accounting
package on it to track payments.

>10) And lastly, I am looking for an ISP that does not have the management 
>       style of a lemonade stand.

At least a lemonade stand has a clue as to giving the customer what they
want, and might even make some money at it.  If en.com makes any money,
considering the above, then it would most certainly surprise me.

Sorry for venting, but this one has been bottled up for a while.  I guess
they must do something right, or they wouldn't have any customers at all.
I just don't know what that something is, nor do I care anymore.

As to customer responsiveness, out of all of the ISP's and such I could
find in Cleveland, apk.net was the ONLY one who responded to my queries.
Not only that, but they responded fairly quickly.  They faxed all of the
right information to me, and I had PPP up and running after only about
30 minutes of screwing around (problems on my end, not theirs).  When I
requested UUCP, I went through the painful process of changing all of
my scripts from my old provider at my old location (I moved up here
last summer) and upgraded the software at the same time.  I gritted my
teeth, but after fixing a couple of bugs on my end, I was up and running.
Better than with my old provider, at that.

Complaints?  None, really.  I'm not an easy person to please sometimes,
but I can honestly say that apk has given me no reason to complain.  Wish
I could say the same for the phone company :)

John, who has no connection with apk other than a satisfied customer.
-- 
//------------------------------------------------------------------------
// momerath@apk.net                    sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT`
// sysop@mome.apk.net                      ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD
//                                           ,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA
//                                            .ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA
                     In case of stupidity, break glass.

March Hare (sysop@mome.apk.net) wrote:
: In article <3155CCCB.93F@en.com>, Chet <murray@en.com> wrote:
: >I have finally had it with en.com's poor service and insulting customer 
: >service.  Can anyone suggest a local ISP?

: >2) Does not consistently drop carrier after 10 minutes.

: You will get timed out on any ISP after a few minutes of inactivity.
: Are you sure that that's not the problem?

I'd be willing to bet he wasn't referring to idle time here.  :)


- Jack


~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~
       o/~     "Music is God's voice"              )Jack Zupan
                                                   )jac@apk.net
                  - Brian Wilson -                 ) Keet  (^,^)

In article <3155CCCB.93F@en.com>, Chet <murray@en.com> wrote:
>I have finally had it with en.com's poor service and insulting customer 
>service.  Can anyone suggest a local ISP?
(Snip)

I've had good luck with multiverse---I have some non-typical systems(different 
operating systems,etc.  Their technical support has been good and they have 
really tried to be helpful. I thought I should pipe in to keep this thread 
from being a total ad for apk (who are either very good appearantly, or very 
devious.)

Sy  

vidsid (sjw@mail.multiverse.com) wrote:

: I've had good luck with multiverse---I have some non-typical systems(different 
: operating systems,etc.  Their technical support has been good and they have 
: really tried to be helpful. I thought I should pipe in to keep this thread 
: from being a total ad for apk (who are either very good appearantly, or very 
: devious.)

Very good.  ;)


- Jack


~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~
       o/~     "Music is God's voice"              )Jack Zupan
                                                   )jac@apk.net
                  - Brian Wilson -                 ) Keet  (^,^)

You may be tempted to consider Netcom, but fight the urge.

Lines: 27

In article <4k3pjq$c7r@wariat.wariat.org>,
jac@junior.wariat.org (Jack Zupan) wrote:
>March Hare (sysop@mome.apk.net) wrote:
>: In article <3155CCCB.93F@en.com>, Chet <murray@en.com> wrote:
>: >I have finally had it with en.com's poor service and insulting customer 
>: >service.  Can anyone suggest a local ISP?
>
>: >2) Does not consistently drop carrier after 10 minutes.
>
>: You will get timed out on any ISP after a few minutes of inactivity.
>: Are you sure that that's not the problem?
>
>I'd be willing to bet he wasn't referring to idle time here.  :)

Point taken.  I wasn't trying to belittle him, and I'm certainly 
not above stating the obvious. :)  Besides, I've often told myself 
that a problem couldn't be caused by thus-and-such only to find out 
that it really is.

John
-- 
//------------------------------------------------------------------------
// momerath@apk.net                    sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT`
// sysop@mome.apk.net                      ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD
//                                           ,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA
//                                            .ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA
                     In case of stupidity, break glass.

audioguys@mail.multiverse.com wrote:
: > Can anyone suggest a local ISP?
: (Snip)
: > 

	CyberDrive is the best that I know of.  You never get a busy 
signal, problems are always solved immediatly, and they're the fasted
ISP around.   They have a friggen' T1 direct to sprintlink!  They're
also expanding like mad.  They have a number for the Columbia 
station to grab alot of Cleveland's west side that would normally be
long distance, and they've just recently put in an Akron line too.
Check 'em out, they're pretty darned good.

P.S.  Rumors going around that Multiverse is going under soon anyway,
so at the very _least_ I would say not Multiverse.

Mike Kaufman
mkaufman@mcs.kent.edu
mkaufman@cyberdrive.net

Mike Kaufman (mkaufman@condor.mcs.kent.edu) wrote:
: audioguys@mail.multiverse.com wrote:
: : > Can anyone suggest a local ISP?
: : (Snip)
: : > 

: 	CyberDrive is the best that I know of.  You never get a busy 
: signal, problems are always solved immediatly, and they're the fasted
: ISP around.   They have a friggen' T1 direct to sprintlink!  They're
: also expanding like mad.  They have a number for the Columbia 
: station to grab alot of Cleveland's west side that would normally be
: long distance, and they've just recently put in an Akron line too.
: Check 'em out, they're pretty darned good.

: P.S.  Rumors going around that Multiverse is going under soon anyway,
: so at the very _least_ I would say not Multiverse.

Heh heh heh.. I couldn't help but comment on the "friggen' T1 direct to
sprintlink"  outside of the fact that EN/APK/Multiverse all have one or more
T1's (to MCI/Oarnet/Net99/whoever) while ready Infoworld yesterday I came
across a great little article :

"In the Internet Collapse vs. Free Enterprise match, the score is 1 to 1.
Bob Metcalfe gets a point from Sprint, which has started to kick
some IP addresses off its network during periods of peak load.  It beats
collapse, I guess, but shomehow, monitoring the on-ramp of a freeway and
kicking of fall the Fords doesn't seem like brilliant engineering"
Infoworld, April 22, 1996 Pg 74 "Internet Update"

Yeah... what a great backbone provider to be connected to :)

--
                Ian Verschuren - Technical Director Digiknow
			http://www.marcusad.com/marcus
             Email ian@digiknow.com		Phone: (216)292-4700
   	      Any comments/views/ideas are in no way a reflection 
                  of the comments/views/ideas of my employer.

Ian Verschuren (ian@junior.wariat.org) wrote:
: Mike Kaufman (mkaufman@condor.mcs.kent.edu) wrote:
: : audioguys@mail.multiverse.com wrote:
: : : > Can anyone suggest a local ISP?
: : : (Snip)
: : : > 

: Heh heh heh.. I couldn't help but comment on the "friggen' T1 direct to
: sprintlink"  outside of the fact that EN/APK/Multiverse all have one or more
: T1's (to MCI/Oarnet/Net99/whoever) while ready Infoworld yesterday I came
: across a great little article :

	Yea, but have you seen MCI lately?  As much as I love 'em for
their LD phone service, they suck when it comes to the Net.  Hell,
have you seen OARNet lately???  Yeesh.  Gives me the willies just 
thinking about them.  I have to suffer through OARNet at school cuz 
that's who most (if not all, but I'm not going to say that since I 
really don't know for sure) the universities/schools in the NE Ohio 
area go through.  Can't tell you how many headaches I've had trying 
just to get out of Columbus.
	You know the route for anything off of OARNet?  From wherever
you are to your local router, to the local OARNet router, (Akron for
Kent State, and I think Cleveland has a router too), then to Columbus,
then finally out to MCI net (which ain't so hot to begin with, see 
above).  Whanna know the route from Cyberdrive?  Cyberdrive,
Sprintlink.  Done.  Dunno about you, but that sounds alot nicer
to me. :)
	

: "In the Internet Collapse vs. Free Enterprise match, the score is 1 to 1.
: Bob Metcalfe gets a point from Sprint, which has started to kick
: some IP addresses off its network during periods of peak load.  It beats
: collapse, I guess, but shomehow, monitoring the on-ramp of a freeway and
: kicking of fall the Fords doesn't seem like brilliant engineering"
: Infoworld, April 22, 1996 Pg 74 "Internet Update"

: Yeah... what a great backbone provider to be connected to :)

	Heh heh. That is a great quote.  I'll agree on one thing,
having only _one_ provider is a bad idea.  Tho it costs mucho extra
dinero, having 2-4 separate connections to either difference places 
with the same provider, or even completely separate providers assures
you pracitcally NO downtime.  Yes, there is that freak chance that
ALL of your providers could be down, but how common is that??  And,
you knew I was going somewhere with this, rumor has it that CyberDrive
is looking to get yet another connection to the backbone.  Dunno 
if it'll stay Springlink or if it'll be another, but I heard DS-3
in there somewhere.  Again, these are just rumors, which means that
if any of it IS true, nothing will be evendent for another 6-8 months.
But still.  I prefer those type of rumors to the ones I've heard of
Multiverse. :)


Mike Kaufman
mkaufman@mcs.kent.edu
mkaufman@cyberdrive.net

Mike Kaufman (mkaufman@condor.mcs.kent.edu) wrote:

: : Heh heh heh.. I couldn't help but comment on the "friggen' T1 direct to
: : sprintlink"  outside of the fact that EN/APK/Multiverse all have one or more
: : T1's (to MCI/Oarnet/Net99/whoever) while ready Infoworld yesterday I came
: : across a great little article :
: 
: 	Yea, but have you seen MCI lately?  As much as I love 'em for
: their LD phone service, they suck when it comes to the Net.  Hell,
: have you seen OARNet lately???

MCI's recent problems are more than likely a result of their massive 
backbone upgrades. Currently, the MCI backbone is T-3 based, but they are 
switching to an ATM backbone. When it's completed, it will blow the pants 
off most anything on the net.

OAR-Net has had it's share of problems, most of which are directly 
related to the over abuse of the backbone connecting their OEB routers in 
Columbus. I believe that they have replaced this 20 mbit bottleneck with 
a Fibre Ring and have addresses the Cleveland lag problem by pulling a 
T-3 here. Anyone care to chip in and verify or correct me feel free. I 
stopped considering OAR-net a serious provider about 10 months ago, so I 
haven't kept abreast of what they have been up to lately. Needless to 
say, I AM aware that certain services have improved.

: Yeesh.  Gives me the willies just 
: thinking about them.  I have to suffer through OARNet at school cuz 
: that's who most (if not all, but I'm not going to say that since I 
: really don't know for sure) the universities/schools in the NE Ohio 
: area go through.  Can't tell you how many headaches I've had trying 
: just to get out of Columbus.

See above.

: 	You know the route for anything off of OARNet?  From wherever
: you are to your local router, to the local OARNet router, (Akron for
: Kent State, and I think Cleveland has a router too), then to Columbus,
: then finally out to MCI net (which ain't so hot to begin with, see 
: above).  Whanna know the route from Cyberdrive?  Cyberdrive,
: Sprintlink.  Done.  Dunno about you, but that sounds alot nicer
: to me. :)

Doesn't matter.. Cause you still have to bounce around the country to get 
out to MCI to get anywhere NOT on the Sprint backbone, which is like 75% 
of the net.

No, Sprint doesn't neccessarily offer any better routing than any of the 
other providers.

The solution? Easy.. get a major provider in Cleveland to pull multiple 
T1s from Sprint, MCI, UUnet and OAR-Net. Plug them into a high end Cisco, 
run a proper routing protocol to peer with all these companies and you have 
a POP that can connect to any backbone with the minimum number of hops.

Easy, isn't it? :)

: : Yeah... what a great backbone provider to be connected to :)
: 
: 	Heh heh. That is a great quote.  I'll agree on one thing,
: having only _one_ provider is a bad idea.  Tho it costs mucho extra
: dinero, having 2-4 separate connections to either difference places 
: with the same provider, or even completely separate providers assures
: you pracitcally NO downtime.  Yes, there is that freak chance that
: ALL of your providers could be down, but how common is that??  And,
: you knew I was going somewhere with this, rumor has it that CyberDrive
: is looking to get yet another connection to the backbone.  Dunno 
: if it'll stay Springlink or if it'll be another, but I heard DS-3
: in there somewhere.  Again, these are just rumors, which means that
: if any of it IS true, nothing will be evendent for another 6-8 months.
: But still.  I prefer those type of rumors to the ones I've heard of
: Multiverse. :)

As I said before.. Rumors is Rumors. Facts is Facts. Stick to the later 
and your safe.

I don't think that your going to see Cyberdrive on a DS-3 in Chagrin 
falls of all places. It's not economically feasible.

--
  Senior Partner of New Age Consulting Service, Cleveland Ohio (216)-619-2015
             SLIP/PPP/Unix Shell   28.8k / ISDN / Leased Line
           http://www.nacs.net   info@nacs.net   (216)-524-8414