Rant: Why My ISP Sucks

There are many reasons, ranging from issues like moving to a new location in the same area counts as a "transfer" not "new service" and thus costs you big bucks for installs, or the fact that the apartment complex where I live is constantly oversubscribed (though the L1 techs love to say that DOCSIS eliminates this problem - which of course has nothing to do with the back-haul line, but anyway). What really gets me, though, are the stupid little things. Like right now, for example. My ISP blocks port 25 to everywhere but their mail relay(s). Ok, fine, I understand, they're fighting spam. But, it gets better. I just went to send an email, and low and behold, I can't send. I receive a "mail relay not allowed" error message. Hmmm. So, I call the L1 techs and ask if there is service underway. Sure enough, there is. Shocking. What is shocking is that they would either take all mail relays down at once, or in fact only have a single mail relay server. In either case, for an ISP to not have a redundant relay that all customers are forced to use is patently ridiculous, as is taking them all offline to do maintenance, rather than servicing them one at a time, thus not affecting the customer (me, in this case). I mean, seriously, build 2 boxes, take 1 down to service, return it to service, take the other one down, then bring it back up, and we're all good, right? Sheesh... it's like 1995 all over again or something...