[Leaplist] Linux on cfl-road-runner

[Steve Litt]

On Monday 09 April 2007 14:10, Dan Cherry wrote:
> Hi,
> I've had Bellsouth DSL since they offered it in my area, and it's been
> 'okay', but lately they seem to be losing the ability to provide acceptable
> service - lots of mistakes, mostly in their offices and behind the scenes,
> not the connection itself.
>
> After checking out the Brighthouse website (primarily advertising - not
> much tech info useful from a networking or Linux perspective), I searched
> the LEAP archives and most road runner info was several years old.
>
> So I'll ask if anybody is currently using central-florida roadrunner (thru
> Brighthouse) with a run-of-mill Linksys type router and Linux boxes behind
> it.  If so...

No, but I just talked about similar things with a buddy with very intimate 
technical knowledge of Brighthouse. He provided me with some interesting info 
leading me to investigate Brighthouse instead of just defaulting to Embarq. 
This guy's a tech guy and a straight shooter, and I very much trust both his 
integrity and his competence.

First, Brighthosue delivers cable into your house, and supply you with a modem 
that turns the cable into an RJ45 IP connection. He says the IP connection is 
OS agnostic.

>
> Do they block any ports (25 in particular, or any other key ports)?

I asked about port 80 specifically, and he said no. From the discussion, my 
impression was no ports were blocked. However, he said running a server is 
against the TOS, and if they start seeing traffic patterns indicating use as 
a server, they'll investigate it and stop the activity.

So if I connected Troubleshooters.Com to Brighthouse, they'd shut it down. If 
I connected JobSecurity.Com, which probably gets a hundred visits a month, 
it's likely that activity would not be observed.

> Do they offer a static IP addr on their residential service?

No. He said you need a business service for static IP. 

> Does their contract limit the number of computers or anything else key to a
> home network?

I didn't get that impression at all, but did not ask him that question 
specifically.

> Any problems in general?

He didn't seem to think so. He said that when stuff went down, it came up in a 
couple hours, and didn't go down often. I was surprised, given the frequency 
of email discussions of cable problems.

Best of all, his understanding (and this is a sales thing so he could have 
misunderstood this) is that Brighthouse offers a $29.95/month light service.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
http://www.troubleshooters.com/