Re: [tlug] FTTH ISP recommendation

[Edward Middleton <emiddleton@example.com>]

I have been using Asahi-net b-flets and am reasonably happy with them.  
They let me use my own router and have reasonably priced static ip's.

Quentin Arnaud wrote:
> I'm in the market for a "good" FTTH ISP in Tokyo area. Let's define
> what I understand by good in order of priority :
>   

My understanding is that for consumer level options you have B-FLETS, 
USEN, Hikari one, tepco hikari for the fiber and then various ISP 
options over these.  The fiber provider usually dictates things like 
whether you can use your own router and the ISP dictates your 
connectivity and billing if it is an all in one deal.

> 1 I can use my own router and am not locked into the ISP's "home gateway".
> 2 I can pay my bills at combini.
> 3 There is some physical stores / counters, I can go to should I have
> any complaint.
>   

If you really want this sort of service I imagine you would need to go 
for a business plan, which I don't think you would want to pay for.  
Apart from giving you someone to corner at a shop, how will having 
someone at a physical shop help you?  My experience is that such 
attendants usually have no authority or technical skills but are good at 
dealing with people, so if you want a shoulder to cry on over the fact 
that they aren't going to/can't fix your problem ;)

> 4 No P2P throttling.
>   

All ISP's I have looked at state in their TOS that they will throttle or 
kick you for excessive usage.  Though what constitutes excessive seems 
to mostly amount to causing complaints from other users.  If you are on 
a low bandwidth shared connection and your activity is causing 
complaints from other users, expect to have problems.  Having said that, 
I have not had problems using P2P software.

Edward