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Accounting Configuration Handbook |
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Time Warner's Road Runner service provides the highest speed commodity prices internet access in the Portland, Maine area. The service is good, but nowhere near as reliable as leased line services delivered by the telcos. Over the next two years we hope to see Bangor Hydro and CMP delivering mixed data and voice services to the home and business with 100% fiber `drops'. Surely the utilities will bring a `mission-critical' level of performance to the market. Bottom line: businesses in Portland can already use internetworking services in more ways than virtually anyone else. You can truly extend your LAN worldwide. The higher speed interconnections mean even the smallest business can take advantage of MaineStreet's shared Lotus Notes servers, back office integration, ODBC databases, off-site backup and Virtual Private Networks (VPN). Subject to your requirements for reliability, you can even use the new infrastructure to replace the network of leased lines with which you now connect your various offices (SWAN). Yes, our modem pool is going away and we have begun shutting down our more distant POPs. It is, after all, a modem pool.... MaineStreet is interconnecting with these new services and plans to be ready to install its customers onto whatever new service becomes available in their area.
Road RunnerWe do recommend to all our customers that they get on RR if possible where it is in their area. There is simply nothing that comes close for the money. RR offers a tremendous service.Still, RR is primarily a consumer system; it does go down for extended periods and compared to the phone company or most well established ISPs it does behave erratically. It's a new technology and, frankly, a different business model than the telcos and utilities. While we believe almost every customer will find it a vastly better than dial up access, we also look forward to improved reliability once there is head-to-head competition from the utilities and telcos. MaineStreet has an operating Linux gateway to Time Warner's Road Runner service. ( No, don't call them about it; they don't even know what a Linux is. ) We can provide login scripts and instructions for Linux users who wish to connect to the internet with TW's Road Runner service. We use Phil Karn's rrlogin.c. MaineStreet's DNS servers can provide dynamic DNS lookup services for customers with DHCP addressing (like Road Runner). For example, your Road Runner address changes frequently; we can make sure it always points to your_host.your_domain.com. MaineStreet's standard solution for mission critical internet services is a unix gateway running workhorse software. We plug it into a regular RoadRunner cable modem to provide secure network services, filesharing, mail, etc... Drag and drop files from the internet onto your desktop. Drag and drop from your desktop onto your web site for customers to upload or download. Update your parts database and reflect those changes to your web site instantly. With such a server, the Road Runner service is an attractive alternative for business accounts currently using 24x7 dialups and we will help our customers migrate their access. WinGate is not enough. Putting machines directly on the net is begging for trouble; guaranteed! We'll rent you a basic ugly box for $50 a month or so. Or buy a new one for about $1500. It's $1000 for one time install plus hourlies to install special protocols and $300 monthly if we monitor and maintain it as one of our own or you can just call us in when you need us. Our gateway box is too much money for a lot of people, to some it sounds like a lot of geekspeak and additional complexity, and to others - well, they want to do it themselves - Microsoft says they can. We, however, like to point out that it's wicked cheap for unmatched performance and experience. From our POV it's minimum entry level for internet **integration** (our job); it provides a world of capabilities (if linux can't do it no OS can), and it works great on RR (their job).
For help on Road Runner, thanks to:
Caveat! Road Runner is a service of Time Warner. While MaineStreet has services that work with it, we cannot guarantee anything beyond our own control. They may make changes at any time.
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http://WWW.MaineStreet.Com/linux/rr/Welcome.html rev 2001-08-10 |