I just got a postcard in the mail from FairPoint Communications, Inc. trying to sway me off my cable modem and onto one of their FAST Dedicated Connection plans.  Their basic price is $49.99 for 15Mbps download/2Mbps upload service (of course, with no guarantee on speed or service availability).  OK, not terrible, but I want a static IP address.  My cable provider already gives me a pseudo-static IP address since my address only changes if I change my equipment.  So I call FairPoint and ask how much extra is it for a static IP address?  The gentleman on the phone asks what speed I wanted?  I questioned why would that matter – an IP address has nothing to do with the speed of data running over that address.  Anyway, for the basic service, a static IP address costs an additional $30 per month! Really???  That’s 60% of the cost of the basic service itself!?!  I have been contacting FairPoint several times over the years to see if they might offer something reasonable, but so far, they haven’t done anything to make me want to become a customer!