Tired of Being Screwed By Cox (no pun intended)

[Thomas Cameron]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adrian Mink" <adrian@minkland.com>
To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: Tired of Being Screwed By Cox (no pun intended)


> Yes, but the main issue in my mind is reliability. I trust my own local
mail
> server to be up when I need it more than
> I trust Cox's mail server.

I mean no offense by this at all, but be realistic:  What if your mail
server smokes a power supply while you are at work/in the dentist's
chair/whatever...  You're screwed.  If the Cox SMTP server tanks, they have
a dedicated group to getting it back up, and I'd bet a donut (maybe two)
that they have a failover system that works reasonably well.

> If I have to use a 3rd party to re-route my mail
> I am left having to rely on their uptime.

I will be the first to admit that when big ISPs have outages, it is usually
a spectacular failure and leads to much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  But
the fact is, they are typically few and far between, and recovered from
quickly.

> Either
> way introduces more possibility of failure. Oh well, I can always pay for
> commercial service! (Yeah, right!)

Bottom line is, if you want commercial capabilities, you will probably have
to pay for them.  Cox is selling *residential* broadband.  It's not
reasonable for them to have to cater to what is a typically commercial use
(SMTP server) for the money they are asking for residential services.

Again, I am not bashing you - I do run my own mail servers at home and at my
company and I wouldn't have it any other way.  But I pay for commercial
grade service at both (RoadRunner Business Class at home and Time Warner T1
at my office).  If having to pay that extra money keeps some spam off the
'Net, so be it.

Thomas