Followup to Webone port 25

[Rasjid Wilcox]

Dear Cluggers,

Firstly, I really did not mean to create such an excited discussion.  I was 
just grumpy when my working setup stopped working.

Secondly, much of the discussion seemed to be about blocking *outgoing* port 
25 connections.  Webone do *not* do that.  They have just started blocking 
*incoming* connections to port 25, and only for users on a domestic plan 
*without* a fixed IP address.

The cost of a fixed IP address for domestic plan users (commercial plans come 
with a fixed IP anyway) is an extra $12 per month, and this also buys the 
right to run services on ports 25 and 80.  Thus Andrew Bishop is not 
effected.

And actually, this is pretty good value.  For $67 per month, I get:
* a fixed IP
* a 1.25GB download limit, which with 50% discount between 12.30am - 9.30am, 
is probably equivalent to 1.8GB or better.
* the right to host my own email and webserver.

As far as I can tell, this is better value than any of the other TransACT 
business plans.  I don't know if any of the other TransACT ISP will do the 
fixed IP thing (and allow hosting) on a domestic plan - I have not asked.

Also, due to the 50% discount and the recent increase in download limits, I 
have been considering changing to the 800MB plan, which would reduce the cost 
to $51 per month.  Personally, I have rarely pulled more than 800MB down in a 
month anyway, and as long as I make the effort to schedule all big downloads 
into the wee hours of the morning, all should be fine.

And I will also say that I have always found the Webone support staff 
friendly, helpful and competent.  I was (and to some extent still am) tempted 
by Netspeed's games server (for the linux stuff), but after a couple of phone 
calls and several emails, I still could not get a clear answer about what 
distributions etc were actually there, at which point a gave up and decided 
to stay with Webone.

Rasjid.

PS.  For those on Webone, the following curl command will get your Webone 
usage posted to you on demand (and you can cron it).

curl -s -S http://www.webone.com.au/cgi-bin/report.pl -d Name=<username> -d 
submit=Submit+Request -e http://www.webone.com.au/private/report.html > 
/dev/null