Slashdot Mirror
DSL Woes
Covad is in the news this week for unplugging ISPs who didn't pay their bills. Covad, in a partly helpful, partly self-serving gesture, has attempted to get disconnected customers hooked up with other ISPs using Covad's service. Oddly enough, the submissions seem to blame Covad - it looks to me like the ISP was the one to blame, taking subscriber payments but not paying off Covad. Covad's financial situation is best described as precarious, with one-third of all its DSL customers not paying - Covad's trying to throw off the dead-weight. So what's the deal with CLEC [?] 's these days? Is there any hope of survival against the incumbent phone companies who will do anything to squash competition?
I would be a bit more critical than Michael. Covad reciently bought BlueStar.net. Covad now competes with DSLnetworks and InternetExpress (among other ISPs). I don't think it's coincidence that they yanked the connections rather abruptly.
Sending email to the end users (not the ISPs that were Covad's customers, but the ISP's customers) reeks of trying to scoop customers for their own partered and owned ISPs.
It all looks rather suspicious to me.
The Doctor What (KF6VNC)
Caino
Don't touch my .sig there!
Why does a country with a leading role in technology and the global economy have such a hard time deploying and marketing the latest innovations? DSL seems to be the latest in a long line of examples.
Think about it. Television, video tape, transistors and microchips all came to being in the US, and non-US companies seem to grab it and run with it. How many TVs, VCRs and video cameras are actually MADE in the US? Next to none (I think there is maybe ONE picture-tube facility in the US--if they haven't already been shut down). A lot of semiconductor manufacturing occurs in the US, but a relatively HUGE amount occurs in Asia (an earthquake in tiny Taiwan didn't cause RAM prices to jump for nothing).
Now we have DSL. The technology leader here is the US, but communications companies can't get their crap together to provide decent service. Even in Canada (which has even bigger problems exploiting home-grown innovation IMHO) we are doing it better. I've had DSL for over a year--I consistently get 1 to 2 Mbps inbound and nearly that outbound and have had less than ONE DAY of outage (in Alberta). In Ontario, some people are even contemplating switching from the horribly inconsistent Rogers@home cable service to DSL because of server outages. Ironically the problems with Cable internet in Canada have a lot to do with screw-ups by the US-based @Home network.
What is Canada doing different than the US for there to be such a difference? I think the US has to be at least as capable (if not more) to provide the best of the best to it's consumers. If private companies can do it with DSL in Canada (despite its higher taxes and over-regulation which gets in the way sometimes), why can't the US? I've always had the impression that the US was much more free enterprise and that US consumers don't put up with the crap Canadians and others would take.
Of course, the telecommnications industry in Canada was privatised and deregulated in a much different manner than in the US. Does anyone have an insight into how come the telephone companies and DSL ISPs are so screwed up in the US?
There's probably a tap somewhere on your line, or anything else creating 'line noise'. A friend moved the DSL pairs on his netbox to a different pair into his house when he had flakey service and all is good. Try different pairs?
;)
Ok, I responded, now my thoughts:
DSL is awesome- solid performance and great tech. Wait til VoDSL comes out and the DSL users can totally drop their local phone company. Then video-ver-DSL and who needs cable?
The DownSide to DSL is having to go through your local ILEC. I have service with Rhythms directly (not a partner) and the service is kick-ass. I've had it just under two years now, a solid 256k SDSL connection that NEVER under-performs and often gives me 28-30K connections. It is expensive though- $120 a month. But it's worth it cause it goes down so rarely. The past two years, been down a total of 15 days. Pretty good for new tech. AND each time that outage went more than 5 days, they took 30% off my monthly bill, no hassles (though I did have to request it).
Look, this technology is still in its infancy. Cars sucked for a long time before they got to where they are today. Same with most everything else. Just because we live in a fast-paced society doesn't mean everything is gonna work out right from the start. Patience!
DSL will be around for a while, and let's PRAY that at least one other provider remains. Verizon SUCKS for phone service, I'd hate to rely on them for my DSL service more than I already have to. And imagine the support/pricing hell we'll go through if you can only get DSL from your local ILEC!
disclaimer: I own stock in RTHM, cause I really think they've done it right. Of course, it's so in the red...but someday!
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
Working for an ISP that was in this situation with Covad, let me explain how this is really going:
1) Covad sucks. Bad. Their turn-around-time on trouble tickets is from 3 days to 3 months, sometimes longer.
2) Covad does not know what they are doing as a collective whole. Their ordering department knows more about the install than the high-school dropout they send to do the install.
3) Covad does not want to resolve these issues, and then expects payment.
4) ISPs have been WITHHOLDING PAYMENT until Covad FIXES their problems.
5) Covad disconnects them rather than fix their problems.
6) Covad will file Chapter 11/13 due to this behaviour.
And that is business with Covad. There are few "deadbeat" ISPs but they are NOT the norm. Bills are being suspended because of a customer service problem; nothing more.
Before anyone goes ripping on these folks for screwing the end user, keep in mind that they're working to keep the end user hooked up. Of course this is self-serving, but it's their duty as a business. They had 14 DSL providers default on them last year, and they've got another 4 filing for bankruptcy. If they didn't do this, they could face a shareholder lawsuit. As for what DSLnetworks said about it being an attempt to bring in more customers, I would say that it is a perfectly valid effort to bring in PAYING customers. A customer is only a burden if the middle-man doesn't pay up. Sucks that it had to happen, for all involved, but it sound to me like they were well prepared and kept the end user in mind.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
There is also the curious fact that people who get connections that don't work through Covad are not keen on paying their bills.
I am one of those customers; I have a bill of over $300 for bad service (the service literally has not been up for 24 hours without some sort of problem), and my provider (UUNET) is telling me not to pay it, and is getting me on to Rhythms.
I wouldn't be surprised if Covad still winds up billing UUNET for the "service" they gave me; it's just fortunate that UUNET is a company of exceptional financial strength (which also charges high fees so they can afford to eat them on occasion).
D
----
Thats funny, I have a friend who had his Internet service through Flashcom, and Flashcom just recently filed Chapter 11, my friend went to Covads site to investigate on how to get another ISP, however Covads reponse was, "It is Covads policy not to allow customers to switch ISPs while their current ISP is in the process of filing Chapter 11", so he's stuck using a free dialup temporarly...
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Anyone who has had people owe them money knows how to spot a deadbeat. Covad knows their customers. I would not be surprised if most of the customers that Covad turned off were just trying to stall with "payment plan" negotiations they mentioned in the article.
If a customer is going to file bankruptcy in a few months, then if you wait to turn them off until then, you'll never see a dime. If you turn them off while they still need the service, then you stand a reasonable chance of collecting *something*. What Covad did is just good sense dealing with bad customers. Deadbeats in translucent-plastic, high-tech decor and stylish casualwear are still deadbeats. Cut 'em off.
-----------
-----------
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
And, no, I don't work for them, but I did find my current DSL provider (CapuNet, which I'm very pleased with) through this method.
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
For over a year I've been receiving free service from flashcom. Occasionally, they would give me a call stating how much I owe, and I continually said, "send me a bill and I'll pay it". They never send me a bill. They do send me newsletters, so they know where I live, and currently, I still have service as if nothing happened. Did I fall through a crack or what? How many others aren't paying a dime for flashcom's service? Is it any wonder they went bankrupt?
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST