Conference vmszoo::consumer

    I recommend Ultranet.  They have several levels of service at
    reasonable rates.
    
    You can get information on Ultranet on the internet at
    www.ultranet.com.  If you don't have access to the internet, they're a
    Marlboro based company, and if you call information for Marlboro, I'm
    sure you can get their phone number.
    
    I've had good luck with them, including good phone support when I had a
    problem with the software they sent me.
    
    ****andrea****

    and from what I hear, be prepared to fight any credit card charges from
    AOL for a month or two as they may be inefficient at removing you from the
    roles. 
    I also vote for Ultranet.

    and if you sign up for ultranet, tell them you work for DIGITAL. That
    is good for 10% off.

    
    I think the "student" discount might be even higher...
    

    
    I also recommend Ultranet.  Never dialed more than five times in a row
    before getting in.  Support is good too.  I've been with them since
    last July and I have no complaints.  They do have a local Worcester 
    number as well.
    
      Lv
    

    I use Ultranet.  I don't plan to stop using Ultranet in the near
    future, although I may have to change eventually.
    
    I can't say my experiences have been rosy; but I find them adequate.
    
    They seem unwilling or unable to perform capacity planning far enough
    into the future to avoid a repeating cycle of insufficient lines.  This
    happens about every six months.  At those low points, I have either had
    to redial in excess of 10 times, or deferred until a less busy period. 
    However thats only in the evenings.  Problems are less on weekends, and
    non-existant during working hours.
    
    Also, they have some quirks in their policies.  A normal user account
    must pay a minimum of $35 to have a cgi script installed, and since
    Ultranet refuses to assist in debugging, it may be expensive to get a
    script operational.  Additional changes would each require an
    additional $35 fee (actually, the fee is $70/hr for a security
    review, minimum 30 minutes).
    
    Also, even if you have a registered domain name (with InterNIC), they
    refuse to provide direct forwarding to your account using the domain
    name, unless you upgrade to a "Bizweb" account, which is much more
    expensive than a normal user account (that is, even if you own domain
    XYZ, access to your page would still be www.xyz.com/~myaccount), rather
    than just www.xyz.com, which returns the Ultranet homepage).  
    
    When one of their folks called me about my complaint, he said "we CAN'T
    perform that forwarding".  When I corrected him, and said "No, you
    CHOOSE not to", the conversation got real ugly.  And this was with a
    paying customer who was merely having a conversation about their
    policies.
    
    Providers like TIAC allow cgi scripting without any reservations, but
    although domain forwarding is available, they charge extra for it,
    though nowhere near as much as you'd pay if you had to upgrade to a
    "business" account.
    
    TIAC provides 10MB, whereas Ultranet only provides 5MB.  On the other
    hand, without any scripting, you'd probably be hard pressed to come up
    with 5MB of content.  I have two complete family trees online, and I'm
    not even close to the limit.
    
    Bottom line, I can't give Ultranet any sort of praise (which is
    unfortunate, since only stellar performers do well in highly
    competitive environments), but I would rate them a solid "adequate"
    unless your priority is using scripting for learning or a particular
    application.
    
    jeb
    

    Re .1 - .5
    
    That sounds like a unanimous vote for Ultranet! They must
    be good.. we will check them out, thanks for the pointer.
    
    Re .4 that's a useful tip.. the wife attends Worcester Poly
    part-time, so she could try for the student discount.
    
    Re .2
    
    This is true, I've heard lots of complaints from friends
    about being able to "stop payments" to AOL. We did take down 
    the name of the AOL person who confirmed our cancelation 
    last night. That should help if we have to write to them later 
    and demand credit for overcharging.
    
    - Ganesh.
                                      

    Re .6                              
    
    Do the problems you describe (other than insufficient lines
    at times, of course..) affect users who are read-only 
    on the Web, or who are just doing e-mail?
    
    We don't plan on hosting our personal website or anything
    like that.. this is just for recreational use, personal business 
    and some college work, that's all.
    
    - Ganesh.

    
    For what you want to do, the issues around CGI scripting or having an
    Internic address are not a concern.  However, for what Jeb is doing,
    I understand his frustration with Ultranet perfectly well.  Ultranet
    should meet your stated requirements nicely.
    
     Rgds, Larry

    You may want to check for sure, but I believe that Mindspring is
    available in your area.  If so, CHECK THEM OUT!  I wholeheartedly
    recommend them.
    
    -Andy

    Re .10 - Yes a friend of mine suggested Mindspring, too. 
    Aren't they nationwide? How's their pricing?
    
    We took the plunge and signed up for Ultranet last Thursday.
    The account was set up and available within minutes after 
    the call. They give away some shareware/freeware tools
    but I run only their Trumpet/Winsock. For tools
    the wife uses Netscape browser/email and Free Agent 
    newsreader, these were easy enough to configure.
    It's too early to tell, but so far we haven't been
    plagued with busy signals during dial-in attempts.
    
    Ulranet advertises three pricing plans:
    
     Economy $9.95/month - first ten hours free, $2/hr beyond 10 hrs 
     Value  $19.95/month - 100 hours free, $1/hr beyond 100 hrs
     Unlimited access $29.95/month
    
    We signed up for the 100 hours and we're supposed to get the
    student discount (20% ?). If there are any billing "surprises" 
    I'll post a followup here.
    
    - Ganesh. 
       

    What about Net1Plus out of Lunenburg?   Anyone have any feedback on
    them?
    
    Thanks.
    
    Joyce