ISP questions

[Bernt Hansson]

Mark Hartkemeyer said the following on 2009-06-04 18:23:
> I'm pretty new to FreeBSD and was reading part of Greg Lehey's The
> Complete FreeBSD 4th Edition.  I found the section on ISPs in chapter
> 18 really interesting.  I put some of his recommended questions to my
> ISP, Cincinnati Bell's Zoomtown.  I think I talked to three or four
> people before I even got some of them answered.
> 
> Here are some of the questions and answers:
> 
> 1. What speed connections do you offer?
>     5MBps upload/5MBps download (she said bytes, but should it be bits?)
>     768kBps

My isp have up to 1Gbyte/s costs 1000SEK a month

> 2. Can you supply a static IP address? At what cost?
>     Yes, $49.95/month for the whole Internet package

Yes 50SEK a month

> 3. How many hops are there to the backbone?
>     "It depends on the site you're trying to reach." (I think they
> misunderstood what I meant by "backbone"?)

No answer

> 4. What kind of hardware and software are you running?
>     "Can't provide this, due to security reasons."

Sun and solaris + linux

> 5. Can you supply primary or secondary DNS for me?
>     "You need a static IP."

No. Do it yourself.

> 6. Can you provide name registration? At what cost?
>     "Talk to residential services."

No

> 7. Do you give complete access to the Internet, or do you block some ports?
>     "Cannot provide this info, due to security reasons."  After
> asking, I was told that I would be able to run a mail server and http
> server on my connection.

Outgoing port 25, 137-139 closed. Incoming port 137-139, 445 closed

> 8. Do you have complete reverse DNS?
>     (They didn't know.)

Yes.

> I assume this is a pretty typical response from ISPs.  Has anyone
> asked their ISP questions like these?  If so, what kind of response
> did you get?  Does anyone know of a really good ISP, or a good
> resource for finding a good ISP around Cincinnati, OH?
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark Hartkemeyer