[H-GEN] Issues with TPG Broadband?

[Greg Black]

On 2004-06-30, Sandra Mansell wrote:

> If you want an ISP that specifically supports Linux, go with [...]
> the service is impeccable and it's
> nice to talk to an ISP that knows and supports your OS.

This is not to dispute what Sandra says, in terms of what's true
today, but it's worth noting that ISPs come and go.  They get
sold; or taken over; or they just go belly-up.  Sometimes, they
just get new managers who don't follow the same religion as the
old ones; sometimes the new managers feel an absolute need to
distinguish themselves from their predecessors and don't much
care about particular religions.

What this means is that, as basis for making a choice, the mere
fact that a service provider currently shows some level of
support for or even understanding of your OS of choice is not a
particularly useful factor.  These things are mere details and
should not really affect your decision, because they are subject
to sudden change.

The real factors are things like your assessment of the ability
of the vendor to stay in business for a useful amount of time
(which is crystal ball stuff, anyway, but you have to do it);
their technical competence to actually keep the system running;
their prices.  Since the only one of these that you can be sure
of is price, it's probably the most useful.

No matter what you do, you can't avoid the fact that the ISP
industry is entirely inhabited by companies without much
interest in "service" -- since they're all the same, to within
a reasonable degree, they have no reason to try to distinguish
themselves in this respect.  (Mind you, I think a really genuine
service-oriented ISP would make a killing, but that's another
story and is only an opinion anyway.)

The upside is that, for users of Unix/Linux, the stuff at your
end of the line is solid and easy to drive and so you don't much
care what the ISP knows about it.

Cheers, Greg