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p>Sometime around 1996 or 1997, after I had moved out of home I had the
opportunity to get high speed internet access through telus (the bctel). After the original install
speedbumps (ie: them not actually installing the hardware to get internet
access), there was maybe one problem every two years, even after I moved to this
building originally.
Fast forward to today, exactly four days after service was installed here, and
there’s an outage. Typical huh? There are other bitches as well, which I
promise I will give to you.
Basically they “can’t” support the old network, which I was on and which was
un-capped, so I was forced to change over to the “new” network where you pay for
1.5mbits, or 4, or whatever. The affordable option is of course the lowest
package. Now, when I first moved into this building I got the Shaw wave, but
when I found out I could get the un-capped service, I dropped the wave like a
bad packet and went back on telus’s service. Now I’m restricted to
150k/s downloads, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea anymore, especially when
the guy down the hall is getting 380k/s downloads, and paying the same price
that I am.
Speed I could deal with, for a while anyway, cause you really aren’t going to be
using it to it’s fullest potential all the time anyway. The
big problem I have is that their DNS system big fat hair wookie
dong. See, I can get a hostname (ami158nly0si.bc.hsia.telus.net) from my ip
(66.183.92.89), but I can’t go the other way. Normally this wouldn’t be a
problem, but as I have paranoid security settings on my server, I get lovely
messages like the following when I try to log in:
Sep 16 18:24:45 ufies sshd[23842]: warning: /etc/hosts.deny, line 15: host
name/address mismatch: 66.183.92.89 != alix51o4y13q4.bc.hsia.telus.net
Sep 16 18:24:45 ufies sshd[23842]: refused connect from 66.183.92.89
This would be ok if my IP didn’t change constantly, or at all. Without even
rebooting it’s changed already, and I refuse to have to log into
someone else’s server to hop to mine every time Telus decides to renew my
address, and reset the IP in my DNS tables. I did manage to hard code the IP
in my firewall though, so hopefully that’ll take.
Anyway, after talking to Ken at telus tech support, and then his supervisor,
who seemed to have a clue, I was told that “reverse dns lookups are not guaranteed
for dynamic customers, [the low level of service that I’m on] but they are for
static customers [add $10-$20 more a month].” So basically that, combined with
the less speed for the same price thing, has caused me to call Shaw and
schedule them in, as Yohimbe has no problems with his shaw cable connection, and
his IPs look up just dandy. Actually I did this a couple of days ago
when I realize I could pay the same amount (actually a little less with their
intro offer, assuming I bought the modem) and get 2x+ the speed. Sorry Telus,
unless Shaw has major issues, I’m having to leave you.
In other news, the house is still in the same place as it was before, with the
cats discovering the joy of hardwood floors. When they jump at a scary noise or
new squeak in the floors, they try to run away, and get even more scared when
they find they aren’t going anywhere! They’ll get used to it though. The rest
of the place is good too, with little things popping up here and there, as is to
be expected with getting used to a new place.