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dfw.internet.providers

Commercial Internet access in North Central Texas

CHARTER

Area of Coverage of dfw.internet.providers

dfw.internet.providers is a newsgroup for discussions directly related products and services of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that operate in the North Central Texas area, roughly encompassing an area from the Louisiana and Oklahoma borders to Eastland TX to the west and Hillsboro TX to the south.

This includes (with slight variances to accommodate local dialing areas): Wichita Falls, Archer City, Graham, Breckenridge, Eastland, Stephenville, Glen Rose, Cleburne, Hillsboro, Corsicana, Athens, Jacksonville, Henderson, Joaquin, and all cities in Texas north or east of the listed cities. This includes the Fort Worth and Dallas metropolitan area.

Intended Use of dfw.internet.providers

This group is meant to discuss, exchange information and have questions and/or problems resolved that directly relate to Internet Provision and the mechanics thereof. This includes:

1. Announcements of new ISPs operating in the area defined above. (Should come from the new ISP, and be posted no more than four times during their first six months of operation.)

2. Changes in service or pricing in existing ISPs operating in the area defined above. This would include announcing a new service or product (Should come from the ISP in question, and posted only once.)

3. Announcement of the demise of former ISPs. (Anyone can handle this, but don't dwell on the departed.)

4. Emergency announcements pertaining to catastrophic outages at an Internet Provider operating in the area defined above, where the normal ISP-provided facilities are not available due to flood, fire, storms, theft, or other major mishaps. (These messages should be forwarded via an unaffected ISP with the blessing of the impacted ISP or ISPs, and should cease promptly when normal operations have resumed at the affected ISP. This type of announcement posting should be limited to one per day until the emergency has ended or 30 days, whichever comes first.) All postings on this subject should cease within one week of the end of the emergency.

5. Issues pertaining to telephone companies and other customer-to-ISP connectivity providers, such as: low analog connect speeds, telco metering, telco pricing or price increases ISDN, tariff or LATA issues, PUC activity, CLECs, cable, DSL and wireless connectivity, data or Internet taxes and surcharges, and closely-related issues to any of these items.

6. Questions from individuals about computer, modem and Internet software setup (PPP stacks, browsers, newsreaders, etc), configuration and other system issues, ONLY when help from the ISP has not resolved the question. If at all possible, utilize the support group of your ISP before cluttering this newsgroup. Chances are, the answer from the ISP that you buy service from will be more relevant to your situation. For example, ask your ISP what DNS address and other PPP stack settings should be used with their service, instead of asking dfw.internet.providers.

7. Discussion of wide-reaching events in the Internet or computer hardware or computer software issues that directly impact or will impact Internet access or usage in the area defined above. Examples, new major backbone carrier setting up a peering facility in the area, new release of a browser from a software vendor, major announcement in computing technology in software or hardware areas.

8. Technical papers, reports and other materials of interest to a significant number of the readers of dfw.internet.providers AND related to the provision of Internet service in the area defined above, OR as a reply or response to a discussion already in progress in dfw.internet.providers, which should have met other criteria. Move drifting discussions to another group with the use of the Followup-To: header.

9. Surveys or other one-time solicitation of opinion by ISPs or individuals on topics DIRECTLY related to Internet Provision in the area defined above. Repeated/recurring solicitation by the same person or same entity on the same subject is not acceptable.

   Organizations or individuals posting queries that are to be used by the press in any form must clearly declare this use of the responses gathered CLEARLY. No undercover news reporters looking for a story on the Internet, OK? No publishing of quotes without prior permission.

10. Announcements of meetings, demonstrations, projects, forums and other activity directly related to the technical aspects of Internet Provision or Internet Service in the area defined above. This also includes summaries or reviews of meetings/events from the same types of groups.

    Acceptable examples in this category include:

    1. ACM, DECUS, or similar open organizations.
    2. Computer clubs that utilize the Internet and/or BBSes.
    3. Free or low-cost Internet TECHNICAL Training classes provided by schools, ISPs, Internet-related businesses, etc. This would include learning to use a browsers, writing HTML, using search engines. Free classes in C, C++ or Java are acceptable only if directly related to their use on the Internet. "Low cost" is defined as a total cost less than eight times the current national minimum wage for the entire course and seminar, including materials and other fees.
    4. Accredited and state-funded or locally-funded institutions of higher learning may announce Internet-related courses despite there being a charge to attend.

    Unacceptable announcements include (and not limited to):

    1. Tax preparation seminar that uses electronic filing.
    2. Elementary school bake sale even if the school owns a computer.
    3. Make-money-through-the-Internet seminars of any type, free or otherwise, even if directly related to Internet provision. (Other newsgroups exist for this.)
    4. Pay-for Technical training classes, except as noted above.
    5. An announcement for any activity, class or service not occurring within the geographical region defined above. (Las Vegas Comdex, an ISP having classes in England, etc.)
    6. Software vendor product preview/screening, unless the software is specifically and exclusively for use on the Internet. (Operating systems, word processors and spreadsheets do not require the Internet.)
    7. I'm going to be at the sidewalk sale next month selling...
    8. Stock offerings, a prospectus, multi-level offerings, and any other form of investment opportunity, even if the offering is in an ISP or other Internet-related company or institution. (Exception: an ISP whose stock or shares are being offered may post a pointer to a prospectus and related stock offering, but no agency or other third-party may post any of this material.)

Crossposting guidelines for dfw.internet.providers

1. Crossposting should be used in dfw.internet.providers only when absolutely necessary, and before a reply is made to an ongoing discussion, the poster should check and eliminate any unnecessary groups that the thread is being cross-posted to and think twice before adding additional groups. The poster should also consider whether another group is more appropriate for the discussion as it stands now, and forward the discussion there through the use of Followup-To: headers.

   Even if an ISP that is being discussed serves other areas, regional internet groups should not be added to the discussion on a "FYI" or "maximum coverage" basis. Good cross-post reason:

   1. ISP-X is going to charge extra for access in these two areas, and each has its own "internet" newsgroup. (Cross-posting to these two groups is acceptable.)

   Bad cross-post reason:

   1. ISP-Y gave me a [busy signal or lost my mail or won't carry a newsgroup or disconnected me for being on 74 straight hours or canceled my account for violation of their policies] and I want everybody in the areas my ISP serves, may eventually serve, or just everybody on the planet to know that I am [angry or postal or suicidal or being threatened or being followed] about this. (Cross-posting this type of topic *anywhere* is not acceptable. This is an individual customer vs ISP personal subject, and the base post should be made in an ISP-specific newsgroup or in a regional flame group, NOT in dfw.internet.providers.)

2. Other regional internet groups should be added ONLY if that area is directly and immediately affected by the issue under discussion. See the examples below.

3. Cross-post to groups belonging to a particular ISP only if those groups are public AND that ISP is specifically related to the discussion.

   Good reasons to crosspost to an ISP-specific group and dfw.internet.providers:

   1. ISP-X is raising prices and that sucks. (Yes, that is a good reason.)

   2. Am unable to get a Crappola BR549 router to work with ISP-F and their tech support doesn't know anything about the BR549. Is there anybody that does and has made one work?

   Bad reasons to crosspost to ISP group and dfw.internet.providers:

   1. ISP-Y gets connectivity from NET-Z and NET-Z sucks. (Probably other ISPs also get connectivity from NET-Z, and therefore the issue is not specific enough to justify bothering the ISP groups unless the discussion should have been in and stayed in the ISPs newsgroups.)

   2. I don't like someone who gets Internet access from ISP-T or works at ISP-U. (This type of post is not welcome in dfw.internet.providers, and cross-posting it *anywhere* else is not welcome either. There are numerous other groups available for flaming individuals or companies.)

4. No more than three groups should receive an article placed in dfw.internet.providers, including dfw.internet.providers.

5. Cross-post to other USENET (not ISP-specific) newsgroups only if: The group is relevant to *this* post, not what the thread was about in earlier posts. The people in the other group will just be coming in on the discussion, so there should be a really good reason for adding them in. Acceptable examples of crossposting to dfw.internet.providers:
   1. comp.dcom.modems, when discussing a modem problem/recall/etc. If a modem group specific to the brand in question exists, use it instead of comp.dcom.modems.

   2. houston.internet.providers, when discussing PUC, Southwestern Bell, Legislative activity, Houston to Dallas Internet signal routes, or other events that apply statewide.
   Unacceptable examples of crossposting to dfw.internet.providers,
   1. Any "flame" group.

   2. Any "general" group.

   3. Any group unrelated to the topics under discussion, which must all relate to Internet Provision in the area defined above.

Article Format

1. Articles posted to dfw.internet.providers MUST be flat-ASCII. This means:
   1. No Binary postings, uuencoded or base64.
   2. No MIME encoded messages. Posts SHOULD be readable by the simplest text-only newsreader.
   3. No HTML, although HTML-like emoticons are acceptable.
   4. No characters with a value greater than 127 in any part of the post.

2. Posts SHOULD be shorter than 30K in size. Longer items SHOULD be made available for FTP or HTTP download and a pointer to that file posted.

3. Posts MUST contain a valid From address, unless the ".invalid" domain is used (see RFC 1036). Spam blocks are acceptable. By definition USENET newsgroups are a broadcast medium. If you have a post that needs to be anonymous, it is not a valid topic for dfw.internet.providers. Post this material elsewhere.

4. ROT13 encoding SHOULD NOT be used on any field in the headers. Nor should any attempts, except minimal spam blocks, be made to obscure the origins of the posting.

5. Posts MUST contain a "Abuse-Reports-To:" or "X-Complaints-To:" header with a valid email address. When RFC1036 is updated, this line SHOULD be adjusted to comply with the latest specifications. Adding or replacing this header is the responsibility of the news server where the article was injected.

Failing to follow the above formatting requirements could result in an article being canceled instantly and without warning by an authorized moderation device (human or otherwise) for the group in question. Articles cross-posted to other groups and dfw.internet.providers must still follow the criteria of dfw.internet.providers and be subject to these rules.