[plug] So-called Internet access

[Steve Vertigan]

Nick Bannon wrote:

> This is one of my pet peeves - companies engaging in false advertising
> on this point.
> 
> Omninet quite clearly advertises that they provide "Internet Access
> Accounts". In other words, they should allocate you with one or more IP
> addresses and make a best-effort attempt to carry internet protocol
> packets to and from those addresses.

My parents in Albany were with Omninet for a while and the are quite possibly
the worst ISP I have ever dealt with.  Not only did they block port 80, rather
than set up a transparent filter they weren't even able to offer a reliable
proxy, it frequently was down!  I was able to use a friends squid proxy on 3128
for urgent things but it was slow as they were going through a modem.  Setting
up squid to work with their proxy is a pain too.  Their web hosting is too
restrictive to be useful and although I should point out I'm not a qualified
mental health professional it's my opinion that the owner/administrator is a
paranoid nutball, my brother had an enormous amount of trouble finding out
things like the location of the perl interpretor and the sendmail binary on
their webhost.  

My advice to the original poster is look at iiNet, they now have a POP down
Albany way and much as I hate to say anything good about them they're streaks
ahead of the rest of the competition down there.

Regards,
Steve