[NTLUG:Discuss] whatever happened to HexNet?

[Stephen Denny]

Jeremy,

Hex.Net was a company I started in 1995 and it was pretty small in the 
scheme of things.  I remember having one modem in and one modem out on the 
first day we opened the doors!  I think that lasted a week.

We had fabulous dialup customers and did a fair amount of business service 
including Linux work.

When things were small I did most of the customer support.  I can remember 
mailing floppies with winsock and ftp to people so we could get them online 
to download a browser.

Boy how things have changed.  Users are so much more sophisticated now.  
They want unlimited email accounts, cheap price etc, so we have made more 
"web-selectable" systems to accommodate that trend, although we still have 
24x7 staff on the phones.  And  now we talk about DS-3 as if it were 
everyday stuff (it is).

Along the way Hex.Net and Hypernet began doing some work together and 
finally merged at the beginning of 2000.  Ultimately we chose to market 
under the HyperUSA name.  HyperUSA is still 100% Linux.

Behind the scenes of Hypernet and Hex.Net in 1999 we started a separate 
phone company named 1stel and now opereate our own fiber rings, phone switch 
etc so that we control all the calls directly to offer service levels for 
which we are in control.  Of course we offer voice and Internet to business 
customers.  We even do our own DSL in some locations.

For those of you that saw the old Hex.Net, things have changed.  Now is a 
diesel generator, battery plant, SONET ADMs, class 5 switch, NetApps, 
service trucks etc as well as the great staff of 20+ people supporting 
everything.  I put a couple of pictures on my home website at 
http://www.casadenny.com/eqpt.html for anyone interested.

I am indebted to Linux for making this business possible.  Back in 1994 when 
I was considering the ISP biz, the only alternative was Solaris which was 
out of the question financially.  Linux came along at the right time to fuel 
the growth of the Internet.

I am no longer doing the day-to-day operations of Hex.Net/HyperUSA but I 
still remember many of you guys.  Some of you may also remember Dan, James 
and Jennifer.  Dan The Man is in California now still doing Linux work and 
James is in New Mexico doing Linux for a power-company ISP.  I keep in touch 
with them.  These are all super people and Linux as a career has served 
these guys well.  I've lost track of where Jennifer is right now.

Nice to remember those old times and thanks for the chance to say hi!  I've 
been lurking on this list for ages and its fun to see the activity.

Good luck to all.

Regards,
Stephen


>   there used to be an ISP in GrapeVine (i think) called HexNet.
>   They were small and ran everything on older hardware using Linux...
>   They were very nice and had great customer service.
>   Anyone know what became of them?
>
>-Jeremy


Stephen Denny
sdenny at casadenny.com


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