The problems you describe are the sort of reason I've stayed far away from the Big Boys... I'm handled by a good local company (fifteen minutes away by bike) that give me DSL, mail, web space and a shell account to handle it all. They'r just installing fibre in the area (associated with Sonic) but ATM I don't feel any need.
On Tue, 28 May 2019 06:32:54 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@GOODEVEca.net (Pete) declaimed the following:
I'd started with a Netcom dial-up shell account (and ran TIA [a SLIrP competitor] on it before moving to full Netcruiser (Netcruiser used to be proprietary protocol and I was on an Amiga at the time). Netcom was sucked up by Mindspring, which was absorbed by Earthlink. But the DSL service was just resold from AT&T -- since the phone lines were AT&T equipment.
AT&T no longer offers DSL in my area (they did in Kentwood during the 5 years I was there), so Earthlink couldn't "move" my DSL service to Lowell. and as mentioned, while I could have signed up for Earthlink's high-speed service, that really means having to get a phone line from AT&T, having Earthlink schedule a tech to come out and install the u-Verse compatible modem, and having AT&T convert from POTS to u-Verse service. Much simpler to just let AT&T bundle u-Verse, (VOIP) phone, along with DirectTV dish as one bill.
It's a good thing I only used four of the 8 email addresses my DSL service allowed -- the $8/month email-only service is limited to five addresses. These are distinct mailboxes, not multiple addresses forwarding into a single mailbox.
{Hmmm, I should maybe create that fifth email -- just to rig one for "admin" emails for my RPi server }
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Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/
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