[plug] DC BOx in Melbourne

[Garth Atkinson]

Hello Pluggers

Has anybody been following the dc box saga (http://www.dcbox.com.au)?
This company in Melbourne connects its clients directly to Telstra's
wholesale data net using ISDN. They provide the hardware and use Linux
as the operating system. The client pays 19c per megabyte download and
gets 24/7/52 connection. My attempts to discuss this sort of connection
arrangement with telstra have drawn a blank. Is anyone aware if this
sort of connection is kosher for companies/corporations? I imagine that
some isp's might not be too happy if typical clients (corporate) can
access the telstra backbone at wholesale rates.

The mere mention of this service to some of my clients has them
clamouring to sign up. Compared with a typical network affiliate account
with IINET, using dc box's system would show reasonable savings (30-40%
ignoring startup hardware costs).

On a lighter note, I quote from The Australian Newspaper:
 'Furthermore, its PC system is based
 on the fledgling Linux operating
 system that, Mr Crow concedes,
 remains plagued by bugs.'

A bit on the nose that!!! Plagued by bugs????? What????

Someone tell these guys to stop using linux 0.8.9 and upgrade!!!!
(or edit the source).

Garth
ps Its about time we have a 'Why did micros~t call NT 5 "Windows 2000"
?' competition. I think this (2000) will be about the typical number of
mouse interrupts serviced between (forced) reboots.