Internet Service in Cortland, NY

The primary purpose of this page is to try to keep track of ISPs that serve the Cortland, NY area, and my experiences with them.  My personal criteria for an ISP are:

• Reasonable price
• Reliable service
• Use standard protocols & software which I can run on my Linux system, not just under Windows
• Be (topologically) close to Syracuse University, my employer
• Not limit connect time, etc. in such a way as to prevent me from working from home at least three days a week and many evenings

Cortland-Area ISPs

Entries in bold face advertise in the Cortland Yellow Pages. Others have been "discovered" by other means.

• A-Znet.Com They are cheap and topologically close to work (6 hops, with only one network provider between them and SU), but their reliability is miserable and their customer service is worse. One of these days they'll provoke me enough to dump them!
• Clarity Connect These guys have been around a while, but they're not so close to work -- 14 hops.
• Dreamscape Online 18 hops to work
• EIS-Global 13 hops to work
• Mohawk Valley Internet Provider 17 hops to work
• Odyssey Networks is based in Cortland.  They have a rather vague policy statement about possibly charging for more than 150 hours/mo online, so I have avoided them so far.  However they are cheap and topologically close to SU (10 hops, with only one network provider between them and SU).
• Syracuse Worldnet Service 8 hops, with only one network provider between them and SU

Other (Non-)Options

• Regional/National ISPs (or Where's the POP?): I travel a fair amount, and would find it convenient to have a national ISP and the bility to make local connections in many places I travel to.  Unfortunately, I have not yet found a national ISP that has a POP in my local calling area (607-749).  In fact, even many regional providers don't have a POP in my area.  Here's a list of ISPs I've checked:
• Epix Advertises in Cortland Yellow Pages, but the nearest POP is in Ithaca. They happen to catch the small community of Groton in the Cortland phone books' local area. They don't serve Cortland proper.
• SunLink Advertises in Cortland Yellow Pages, but has no service in this area. Very odd.
• AT&T Worldnet
• Mindspring
• Bell Atlantic.net
• Applied Theory
• MCI WorldComm Internet
Notice that AOL is not on this list. I have two things against them:  There is no way of checking their POP coverage apart from actually signing up, and (so far as I know), it only works with their (Wintel and Mac-based) software.
• Time-Warner, the local cable provider is offering its Road Runner cable modem service in this area.  Unfortunately I live too far out to get cable at all, much less Road Runner!
• I can't get ISDN service directly (through the Homer Wire Center), but I can get it through Bell Atlantic's Virtual Service (from the Cortland Wire Center)-- at an extra $10/mo.  Add that to the $0.01 per-minute-per-data-channel charge, and it is gets relatively expensive.  Besides which, I don't know of any ISPs which support ISDN in this area so who could I call?
• DSL is like ISDN but more so.  Last time I spoke to Bell Atlantic, their deployments plans, looking one year ahead, did not include my area.  Not surprising since I can't even get ISDN.
• Satellite data service from DirecPC is an option, but the pricing is ridiculous, and the plans available rather limiting (150 hours online/mo.)
• Multilink-PPP (multiple modem connections bonded via software on both ends into a single channel) would be a possibility, but it requires (a) extra phone lines and modems, (b) an ISP that supports it on their end.