Re: Re: [ba-poker] Dependable Internet connection?

[Michael Hunter <michael.hunter1(deleted the rest)>]

> 
> > If you're playing big touranments regularly, I'd suggest having at least 
> > one backup access plan.  Probably even dialup is good enough.
> 
> Some DSL plans offer free dial-up as a backup, but their failures are
> likely to be correlated with failures of the DSL system (if the
> problem is not a last-mile problem), so an alternate provider is
> probably a more reliable choice.  AOL has (or used to have) a low-usage
> plan that only cost ~5/mo if you don't use it, with hourly charges 
> after the few free hours per month.  I keep that as a backup/travel
> plan and it works for me.  
> 

There are a few pay as you go dial up internet services.  I found a 10-10 one a 
few years back that I used on my travels.  Depending on how often you expect to 
use such a service the higher cost per unit of time might be reasonable.  Of 
course if you expect to use it as a hot backup then you need to be dialed in 
when playing over your broadband connection which argues for a flat fee service 
and a second machine.

FWIW my experiences with both DSL and cable have been that outages tend to be 
infrequent but of duration on the order of hours.  Intermittant drops sound 
like they could be caused by another factor.  I've heard reports of the party 
client getting Winduhs into a low memory situation after which it goes 
catatonic.  My old dlink router use to stop forwarding packets after I'd 
created and destroyed too many vpn connections through it (memory leak?).  Each 
of these looked like possible ISP trouble but after some investigation were not.

                   mph