When Local ISPs Go National, All Customers Get Is Grief. My dialup access is through one of the nation’s oldest independent ISPs, the World at Software Tool and Die around the corner from my house in Brookline, MA. Certainly belongs on someone’s best-kept secrets list: never a busy signal, optimal speed, prompt competent technical assistance, constant quality improvement… I dread the day they’re bought out. Now if they’d only partner with someone to offer DSL with the same quality…