Landon Fuller

Jonathan and I have founded Plausible Labs, where we're now working on GIS technology and applications for the iPhone. It's our hope to heighten interest in the communities and culture around us by providing ready access to geographic information.

In addition to our standing commitment to releasing what we can as open source, we're interested in sharing the geographic data we've gathered, with the intent of encouraging the creation of a broad range of data-driven applications.

Suggestions

I've received a number of suggestions to try sonic.net. They block port 25 (as do most ISPs), but will happily remove the block upon request:

We here at Sonic.net pride ourselves at providing the WHOLE
internet, not just parts. Port 25 as mentioned is the only port that
we do block for individuals who reside on our network. You can go
into the Member Tools section of Sonic.net and modify any of your
firewall settings.

I've got a sales query pending to see what DSL speeds I can get here in Cole Valley

Thanks for the tips!

Original Post

I wouldn't normally post something like this, but my mind boggles at the thought of paying for an internet connection that's filtered by Comcast. I actually use outgoing SMTP.

When considered against Comcast's bittorrent filtering, I find this trend disturbing. Once Comcast has deep packet inspection, and is comfortable inconveniencing customers with port 25 filtering, I don't see any reason why the trend won't continue with other potentially inconvienent network protocols.

Anyone recommend an alternate internet service provider in San Francisco? Here are the support conversation highlights:

Caleb(Fri Jul 18 2008 13:38:06 GMT-0700 (PDT))>
First, and most importantly, you should know that Comcast does
not block access to any Web site or application, including
peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent. Our customers use the
Internet for downloading and uploading files, watching movies
and videos, streaming music, sharing digital photos, accessing
numerous peer-to-peer sites, VOIP applications like Vonage,
and thousands of other applications online. 
 
We do the port 25 blocking so that we can verify that users are
sending email through our servers that is Comcast email accounts
only.  
 
Landon_(Fri Jul 18 2008 10:39:44 GMT-0700 (PDT))>
Regardless, Comcast is blocking outbound port 25 to my
corporate e-mail servers.
  
Caleb(Fri Jul 18 2008 13:39:25 GMT-0700 (PDT))>
They should have a webmail version that you are able to use when
not at the office.
 
We cannot unblock the PORT 25.  I am sorry for any inconvenience this
may have caused you.