From: alexis@panix.com (Alexis Rosen)
Newsgroups: alt.bbs.internet
Subject: Re: NYC INTERNET ACCESS
Date: 26 Jan 93 23:05:46 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

andras@well.sf.ca.us (Andrew Raskin) writes:
>in reply to what I posted I received 5 letters from current subscribers of
>alexis agreeing with what I had said. The only one that didn't request to be
>kept anonymous is printed here.

Hm. Four letters from people who asked to be kept anonymous? That's peculiar.
If they agree with what you said, why are they still using panix? And why do
they care if I see their notes? To be blunt, I think you're a liar. (On that
note, I'd still like to know what name you used when you had an account
here and (as you claimed in your first note) paid us money.)

Even if you weren't, I'd say that that makes it about 6:1 in favor of panix,
going by the postings here. And that's a ratio I could live with (though it
should be better, and I think it is).

However, the note that you did print is interesting. Kathleen Kelly of nyxfer
writes, via your posting:
>> Aside from the fact that we've found panix extremely un-mercenary,
>> compared with Peacenet, the major money-grubbers of all time,
>> this scathing review of Panix certainly matches our experience!
>> Everything "breaks" -- what do they do, have gorillas jumping
>> up and down on the modems and the hard disks? Anyway, this
>> note of yours is missing one piece of vital info: HOLONOET's
>> TELNO!  What is the telephone number of this paragon?  We're
>> in the market for another system.... and do they give out
>> uucp accounts?

I have to say that I think that their note is rather extreme. But it's not
entirely unsurprising. Nyxfer uses us to pump through a huge amount of mail
and download it. For a while we had trouble with not-fully-compliant zmodem
implementations (which, though not strictly our fault, we finally fixed a few
weeks ago). If I recall properly, they were downloading with one of the broken
zmodems and had trouble. (I won't swear to this, this was a while ago.)

At any rate, our only communications in the past few months have been requests
from them for a UUCP feed. Since their volume is tremendous compared to an
individual user, I declined until we were ready to deal with the administrative
burden of hourly-charge UUCP feeds. (Feeds for individual users are still free).

Nyxfer is basically a pain in my ass. They use the system much more than an
individual person would, and I have many times regretted making an exception to
the one-account-one-user rule. But I won't boot them off summarily since I
told them it was OK. I still don't have any intention of tossing them off but
if they think we're terrible, they can always leave. I'd be a happier person.

As for other things being broken, no question... things were broken in various
ways at various times. That's life. That's also why, in the last few months, we
have:
1) Replaced direct serial connections with first a netblazer and then a Xylogics
   Annex III terminal server
2) Replaced ALL our 2400bps modems with Hayes modems (which support MNP and V.42)
3) Replaced our Mac with the Sun
4) Bought a cisco router and upgraded our internet connection to a 56kbit leased
   line.
5) Added more modems (now there are 20 2400bps and 10 V.32bis lines).
6) Added a 1.0GB and 2.4GB disk for more (and faster) storage
etc.

Things are never perfect, and I've never claimed perfection. But we're getting
closer. 

>here we go again, just like 10 months ago

Dunno about that. I think we're better than we were ten months ago.

---
Alexis Rosen   Owner/Sysadmin,
PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC.
alexis@panix.com
{cmcl2,uunet}!panix!alexis