@Home customers left in limbo (blackout not likely)

CNet ^ | 11/30/01 | Rachel Konrad

[VA Advogado]

I don't think AT&T has a very big stake in this either, relative to their size.

But its such a cash cow for them. There are virutually no new costs for them once the nodes are in place and everyone is pinging along.

[Cagey]

I'm right behind you, Spartacus!

[DJ Frisat]

Be careful what you wish for, sissy....

[HairOfTheDog]

Mocha river?! - Mine will be real tears... Cable is my only usable connection... my phone line gave me about 28K on a good day.

This is WAY scarier than midnight Y2K!

[Cagey]

I received an e mail from a person who changed to charter.net today from @home. Is charter a 56k ISP? Or, are they a cable provider?

[engrpat]

My connection in Arlington, TX has been fine all day. Just worried about tomorrow...I have to have my @home..I am hooked!

[Hillary 666]

I'm an @Home customer. I'll keep Freeping as long as I can.

[revtown]

charter is a cable service. We had TCI@home, then bresnan now charter for cable TV. I had @home cable modem service for a couple of years now even thou the cable tv service switched hands.

[My Favorite Headache]

LOL...I am hooked up through the AOL High Speed...doing fine :)

[Slip18]

And what about quotes, Mombonn? Holy moley!

[Hillary 666]

If I can't be on FreeRepublic and download MP3s (at the same time), I am going go insane. 56K? It's like like riding your 10-speed on the freeway. I'll quit cold turkey before going back.

[meyer]

LOL...I am hooked up through the AOL High Speed...doing fine :)

Ewwwww!! OK, seriously, if you don't mind AOL, then I guess its all right. I won't go back to them ever. I was a customer of AOL when they went through that capacity shortage a few years ago. I almost never got a connection. I vowed then to never deal with AOL again.

I don't know how they do it now, but AOL used to have that annoying proprietary software along with their highly filtered interface. Perhaps they have stepped up to the real internet now, I don't know. And if I ever see an instant message again, I'll scream. Those things had a habit of popping up at the most inopportune times and I absolutely hated it.

[1John]

Charter here in Southern Oregon is trying to offer "Charter Pipeline" ASAP which will completely replace @home.

We'll have to wait and see what this means for the individual subscriber. Anyway, Charter is promising that any outages will be short and will result in a 2 hours of "Charter Pipeline" to replace each hour of outage. That's the latest I have on it.

I'm still on line as you see and I'm hoping I will get to participate in the FreepaThon this weekend where we will all get a chance to support FreeRepublic, which is why we all want to be on line anyway, right?

[spycatcher]

AOL, NetZero, and Juno all seem to overtake your system and give you lame speeds. AOL 5/6/7 can actually destroy your Windows install.

DSL or satellite access is the only way -- other than cable

[Myrddin]

I had a great DSL connection at my old home in the Mira Mesa area of San Diego. When I found it necessary to rent a room from my father in Chula Vista, it was impossible to get DSL on his phone line (too far from the CO and no DSLAM either). I opted for Ricochet service. It was great...for a whole 3 weeks before it went bankrupt. I now have two paper weights worth over $350. What's left for high speed access at Dad's house? Cox@Home. When I got wind of the trouble brewing with @Home, I decided to delay buying a cable modem for my Dad's house. It looks like that was a good decision for me financially. My dad is left with nothing but dialup for connectivity.

[HairOfTheDog]

I would rather eat glass than use AOL... But it is the slow dial-up connection that will really make me snap...

The silver lining is that I will want to spend so little time at my computer that I will not be needing that carpul tunnel surgery after all....

[newzjunkey]

There will also be a renewed push to eliminate the cable company monopoly over our cable lines.

Let's hope so. Funny how @Home has been losing money so, but no word on competitor RoadRunner. @Home capped the streams, perhaps to save on costs, and yet are losing millions per day. Maybe they deserve to go under. I guess they can't hope for a gov't bailout like those opportunist airlines. Pity.

[Don Myers]

bttt

[spycatcher]

Some good info from the other thread:

"I might do an ipconfig or winipcfg and try to use my current address and subnet as a static IP. After all who's to say that they will just turn off all the routers? They may just turn off the DHCP servers."

"Just called the comcast hotline and got the 5:00 PM update. They said that @home has the right to end service at midnight tonight, but that comcast does not expect any interruption of service."

For all Insight@Home Customers [actually some good news] from their situation update page...

"We are working hard to avoid any inconvenience to our customers. In mid-October, we, together with other @Home affiliates (including Cox, Comcast, and Mediacom), increased our payments by over 50% to ensure uninterrupted service until an agreement among the Creditors could be reached; this was done at no additional cost to our customers. @Home affiliates including Insight are supporting AT&T in its bid to buy the @Home network. If the network were to go dark, there would be no cash coming in nor would there be any bids for @Home's assets. Therefore, it makes no sense for @Home to "pull the plug."

If the unlikely occurs, we will cover your cost of a dial-up service until we can transition you back to our broadband service. As I mentioned in our earlier note, we are talking with AOL Broadband and Road Runner, and believe we can expedite a transition."

[lady reaper]

The way I see it, is if @home even loses service even temporarily, we as customers shouldn't be charged for it. Simply, Net Zero is not the alternative! Cox knew this was coming, and should have had there act together already; now I'm hoping there will be no outages tonight, or in the near future.