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CPUC Tells Northpoint To Restart Network
cprael writes: "According to San Jose Mercury article, the California Public Utilities Commission has ordered Northpoint to relight their network and provide all California customers service for 30 days. The intent being to allow them time to migrate to a new service in an orderly manner. This is probably the tip of the iceberg in terms of court actions - personally, I expect to see a lot of lawsuits aimed at Northpoint, the ISPs, and anyone else within reach over Northpoint's abrupt shutdown." It will also probably strike at the heart of arguments about how regulated (and by whom) ISPs ought to be.
Well said.. for a communist. While we're at it though, let's add government provided health care, electricity, telephone service, cable TV (we just HAVE to have cable.. have you watched broadcast tv lately?), gas, and water. I think everything should just be provided by the government and we should just give our entire paychecks to them in the form of taxes. That'd be a great idea. Then when you want food you just go up to the local government owned grocery store, show your state ID and have them swipe it to see if there is any credits left on your fair share allotment of food.
I live in Brooklyn, NY in a neighborhood that the cable companies would like to think doesn't exist and where I have limited DSL availability. I was very pleased with my ISP (Evolving Edge), but this Northpoint thing has me wondering something (besides when my DSL will shut off)...
Are we trying to enter the information age too quickly?
Northpoint isn't the only one in trouble, many bandwidth providers are in it deep.
The TINY, TINY margins on computing hardware can't possibly sustain the general computing hardware industry (PC organ bank).
Software is still a black art, even to the wizards.
Have you guys ever stopped to consider that the vast majority of the gains we've made in the computer industry has been the result of two things:
1. Running in the red and living on capital until we either drive the competition under or our investors come to collect.
2. A process model of development (hardware AND software) that rewards flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants and brute-force solutions instead of a careful engineering methodology.
Perhaps we need a technology (bandwidth, hardware, software) crash that pauses Moore's law for 10 years while we take the time to think up elegant and sustainable solutions to the problems we are tryin to solve?
Jeez, man. THINK!
Well, in all honesty that would have also meaned removing any EPA restrictions on constructing new power plants as well. People want cheap reliable power but they don't want anyone to build any power plants. Duh. We need to let capitalism flourish again for true deregulation to prove beneficial to the customers. That means we need to learn to look the other way when a company dumps mercury into a stream or smokestacks billow black smoke. It's the cost of doing business. We need to stop whining about it and deal with it. So our kids will have three arms. Think of what our basketball players would be like! Three armed 10 foot giants with 2 pairs of eyes on each side of their skull. They would be unbeatable.
Cheap shot, as in $0.63 on the dollar(CAD).
I wrote parts of this stuff
Some ISPs are CLECs because they need to rent local loops, like Northpoint (which is not an ISP, but a wholesaler). Some ISPs are CLECs because they want reciprocal compensation for terminating calls. But there is nothing compelling ISPs to register as CLECs, nor is there any regulatory body that can claim any dominion over ISPs to any greater extent than any other business. What that means is that no precedent is being set here w.r.t. ISPs.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Anybody who didn't see northpoint going under 3 months ago and take appropriate action deserves what they got. Jato suffered the same fate. It was pretty clear several months out that they were becoming a FC.
Just think of Ayn Rand's stuff as comic books on the wrong end of the 1 picture = 1000 words equation.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Could we then use the Freedom of Information Act to sue for access to MS code, along with other eveidence of atrocities?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Does AT&T have any cable television operations, including cable modem service, going on in any of the affected areas?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It's really spelled "evidence". April Fool.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Unfortunately they did happen to hold a record for a few domain names etc. More or less was a pain in the ass for me to deal with =(
... tada... Northpoint. In the space of 12 hours, both my primary and secondary DNS went buh bye :-(
I hear you.
My ISP was also Reflex, and I hosted my primary DNS on that box. I knew that they were going, but I thought I was covered, because I was hosting my secondary DNS on my company's DNS server, whose DSL provider was Concentric. Unbeknownst to anybody at my company, Concentric had subcontracted the DSL to
Disclaimer: IANAL, IANAAC, IDKWITA, but here goes:
Since there seems to be a law requiring them to give thirty days notice, it is entirely possible that the state will pay the operating cost for the next thirty days -- money which will in turn be pulled in from the bankruptcy proceedings. I believe the order of importance during a bankruptcy is the government, primary creditors (like banks, lawyers and accountants), secondary creditors (you and me), then the owners (fat chance). This means that they would be fairly sure of getting their money back.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
"2001-03-30 22:26:47 California regulator blocks NorthPoint shutdown (articles,news) (rejected)"
A responsible business executive shuts down the business in an orderly fashion before all of the assets are gone.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- California regulators Friday ordered NorthPoint Communications Inc.'s remaining five employees to upkeep the major internet service provider's operatons and swindle its service providers out of monetary obligations for another 30 days.
One anonymous official said: "I don't see how a company going bankrupt has anything to do with its service being suspended. This shouldn't happen."
It remained unclear, however, how exactly operations would be upkept, as the majority of Northpoint's staff has been laid off, and its bills have remained unpaid for over a month. Regulators say they will not pay Northpoint's bills but expect them to provide service anyway.
That's sad.. I've walked up and down that street many times and I always thought I was on Howard.
Thanks =)
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
This doesnt quite seem right, all of their assetts have been auctioned to AT&T for $135M. They have filed bankruptcy and are going through that process. Where is the money going to come from to stay alive for the next month?
More reasons to go with Pac Bell.. After my first DSL bankruptcy fiasco I'm just sticking with the company that made a pact with the devil to stay in business. It's no coincidence their address is 666 Howard St, San Francisco..
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
So why can't CPUC just order PacBell to hook up the NP customers who sign up for the service in 5 days instead of 7 weeks.
Can pigs fly? Only if CPUC orders them to.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
At first I was happy to be learning how to read, it seemed magical and wonderful. Then I read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I read every word of this piece of garbage, and because of it, I'm never reading again!
--Officer Barbrady--
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Same shit happened to me on thursday - my ISP (Reflex Communications) filed for Chapter 7 bankrupcy and just dissapeared. Unfortunately they did happen to hold a record for a few domain names etc. More or less was a pain in the ass for me to deal with =(
Which province is that?
I was a customer of Reflex Communications until Friday a.m., when I abruptly lost my service. (See story about their bankrupcty. I'm a bit irked that they filed on Wednesday but I got no advance notification -- or if I did I couldn't read it because I couldn't get to my email. It would be nice if I could get it back on for a couple of weeks while I make a transition.
Maybe it's time to consider state owned and run high-speed internet providers.
No.
No way.
No fucking way in hell.
Take a good long look at your state government, federal government, various departments such as transportation, bureau of motor vehicles, welfare, taxation, etc.. look at how those departments actually run.. then take your meds and come back and say that again.
If it was left to the government, we'd just now be getting those new kickass 4800bps modems. And you would probably be paying $0.01/packet tax to boot.
-'fester
Dude...
You are a karma whore!
Execute? [Y/N] _
According to http://biz.yahoo.com/apf/010330/northpoint_closure _2.html, there doesnt seem to be anyone left to turn on the lights. the remnants of what was NP only exist to continue a $1B suit againt Verizon.
Man.. you would figure the California public utilities commission would have enough on it's plate at the moment! "Damn, my ISP just went down.. guess that UPS I bought wasn't the only thing I needed to do to guarentee my 24hr/day mp3 snarfing abilities."
How we know is more important than what we know.
*sits down at the fire, puts his cane down*
Why, I remember waaay back when the state *did* run the internet. Let's see, it must have been what, 10 years ago. It was an aweful mess. I mean where would we be without the lovely corporations like AOL, Network Solutions, @Home? They are just so much more productive then the National Science Foundation (or for us Canadians, BCNet, OntNet, etc.) Oh yes, thank the gods that now when something goes wrong, I have to track down the little local ISP that owns the domain, find out that they no longer own the domain, but that noone remembered to update the technical contact, or worse get a "Sorry the number you have reached is out of service".
Seriously, having worked professionally in both environments, I found the old regulated system to be much easier on the nerves. Most of the people running them were at least competent, if not outstanding, since there wasn't 100 companies competing for their services. You knew when you called the CAnet NOC that you were gonna get someone with a clue. When was the last time you tried to find someone with a clue in @home land to deal with something like a BGP peering problem?
Minupla
--
Remove the rocks to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Well, perhaps my expectations have dropped too low given problems I've had in the past, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Telocity (my ISP on top of Northpoint) had, within 3 days, managed to get a contract with a national dial-up provider so that customers like me could still get on the 'net. Unlimited dial-up, no extra charge and they aren't charging us until they get DSL back up. Good thing, too, since my backup dialup access method only provides 10 hrs/month without those pesky hourly fees...
They say they'll have another DSL carrier for us in 3 weeks or so.
--LP
So, does this mean that the CEO of Northpoint can lease a single DSL line from PacBell (or whoever) and provide a "rolling DSL" to his customers? Can you imagine rolling the connection across 1000+ customers?
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
"No, it's I-gor."
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Here's a couple other places that speak Swedish Chef, and can make /. even more fun!
the Dialectizer
the Encheferizer
Del
I don't know how it is in the US, but in Australia we have a telco system that has a whole heap of regulations and standards that must be followed. For instance anyone who is doing the wiring of phone lines in your house must be Austel approved. This is because obviously telecommunication is seen as a neccessary part of everyday life. I would like to see similar rules and regulations, as well as standards compliance checks (AusInt??) to apply to all isps. The internet isn't a fad, it's a way of life for more and more people these days, so why not impose on it similar conditions as those imposed on a telco.
Wiring a phone line isn't difficult to do. So how much do they rape the Australian consumer for installing a second phone jack?
Two more cases in point:
Edith Keeler Must Die
The more regulation, the more chance the ISPs will be awarded common carrier status. Which means they can't be told to shut down a user because of what he's posting, and the spinelessness of ISPs will cease to be a barrier to free spech on the Internet. If the user paid, he gets his 'net time.
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
When ISP service becomes a legal right instead of a luxury service, I think it's safe to say that the Internet has taken its place as a fundamental part of life in society.
Got Rhinos?
"Excuse me sir, may we come in?"
"Who are you?"
"We're from the CPUC"
"The who?"
"The California Public Utilities Commision."
"Come again?"
"Sir, we have a court order - you have to reboot your computer."
...I'm guessing you coule have named this one better, timothy: "CPUC Tells Northpoint to Restart Network" is kinda misleading...
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
"Excuse me sir, may we come in?"
"Who are you?"
"We're from the CPUC"
"The who?"
"The California Public Utilities Commision."
"Come again?"
"Sir, we have a court order - you have to reboot your computer."
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Quebec, I think. I know there's a subsidy for dialup net access that ends in about 15 minutes...
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Second, Northpoint filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, which is "protection from creditors". That doesn't dissolve all obligations they have, it just means they can put off paying some bills for a while.
So it's entirely appropriate for the CPUC to issue an order of the type they did.
Why does everybody always have to make things so complicated? What's the point of ISPs, or those special internet connections anyway? This is my idea: get a lot of people to put special mirrors on their roofs, and act as relays while everybody shines lasers at them. Or, a more covert laser communication system is to give every person in the world a number. When you want to transmit that number to others all you do is shine a laser in the eye of the person with that number. They read about it, or see it somewhere and think "Oh, #9457438470 is blind, somebody is sending me the word the" Granted it would take a lot of time and people to send big MP3s or movies, but it would be worth it. Or if that does not work, just have really loud people yelling out the packets. But those can phones are still the best. Something else I'd like to say (offtopic, but don't hate me for this).
Has anyone looked at the different languages supported by Google? By personal favorite is their made up language named "Bork, bork, bork!". Check out Google prefs in Bork,bork,bork for an example. This is my default now
Until high speed internet access is defined as an essential service (as it is in Canada), the courts cannot force a bankrupt company to rupture even more money and turn the network back on.
Hmmmm. Yet another example of the dangers of de-regulation (or no regulation) of what is considered an essential service????? Haven't those silly Californians learned their lesson yet?
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
Who do they think they're kidding? Last August-October, it took Pacific Bell 7 weeks to simply move my DSL service from one house to another. The new house was even connected to the same phone switch as the old house.
cat
Err, shouldn't your mainc concern be power to RUN the computer that's connected. Hell, even a 14.4 won't do you any good during a blackout, heh.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Kinda ironic that these idiots still are still around.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Great, thats all we need is more of the CA government's great regulation. Perhaps they could force companies to charge a fixed rate to consumers for internet access as well as electricity, yet force them to pay the market price for their resources. It all makes sense if you live there I guess.
I sorta like
One thing that the article left out is that the CPUC actually has some power in this (their gesture is not entirely symbolic at this point). If the CPUC is unhappy they can refuse to approve the transfer of Northpoint's assets (see a copy of the CPUC's ruling at dslreports.com). This would, naturally, be a significant roadblock in the AT&T deal, which is the only thing that will let Northpoint's creditors even see pennies on the dollar. So, if the CPUC holds firm, some amount of justice will be done. Read the dslreports.com coverage of the negotiations between the ISPs and Northpoint to fund a more orderly transition. The reason it did not happen is that the bankers and other creditors of Northpoint got greedy. They wanted to take lots of the ISPs' money without giving any guarantees about the level or length of service they would provide for a transition.
Question: under the .NET program, would Microsoft be an ISP and/or similar service provider?
If MS becomes wildly successful with the .NET initive, and if it is a monopoly as ruled in court, does this legal action open the door to the government takeover of Microsoft down the road, in the Public interest, since they are a monopoly, since they will have made themselves essential to the welfare of America?
[Insert Fantasy sequence] And further, under such a take over, could they regulate the quality of code? such as making it some sort of criminal offense to write code with an excessive number of bugs. - think of it - microsoft code being reviewed and managed like they do it for the Space Shuttle. (see original story here.)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I am currently with covad but I am not worried about them becoming bankrupt becau
DSL service terminated
I think we're beginning to see the reality that is becomming apparent. As web access and online services, businesses, and communities, begin to flourish, we are becomming increasingly dependant on providers. Schools all have access to the web, and my own provincial government is spending $1000 CND on each family to help them get a computer and online.
But if we are going to make access to the web available to all, under certain conditions, we don't want to have it regulated right? Well, I think that's becomming less and less of a possibility. Just as governments control radio and television, it seems that the only way to gurantee the infrastructure related to high-bandwidth connections at home is to have the industry responsible to a body of some sort. Now the industry can't exactly police itself can it? Does it need policing at all? The questions will only come in time.
I think I thought I thought I think.
yoink
AT&T bought all of NP's networking assets and started to yank them out of the CO's, which exsplains why the NP network is going dark. The ISP I work for lost 500 customers with 24 hours notice - We went to a CO and saw the AT&T guys removing the kit. So, let's attack AT&T...
Frankly, it all depends.
Or how about we just get it right this time and find some company that's willing to provide residential customers with ethernet or fiber. There's enough money in California to generate demand, I can't imagine DSL is going to keep people placated for long. I'm moving out to work there in a few months, and my primary criteria is bandwidth availability. Will someone help me?
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
Everything in life, down to the basic elements of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water are regulated by goverments both local and national.
But what about Ether?
"And like that
Knowing NorthPoint, restarting the network will be harder than starting a Ford Pinto in sub-zero temperatures with sugar in the gas tank!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
And all of those lawsuits will end up with the plaintiffs getting nothing, because NorthPoint is pretty much bankrupt. How much? I quote from a former NorthPoint employee's comments to DSLReports.com:
"Somehow NorthPoint officials decided that they are NOT going to pay employees any vacation balances exceeding 25 hours. That's right, three days!!! No severance package of any kind. This is the thanks one gets after their hard work and dedication for the past two years. But somehow in the midst of all this, [NorthPoint CEO] Liz Fetter still manages to receive a $45,000 bonus tomorrow."
NorthPoint will use up the remainder of their money to pay Liz Fetter. No severance to former employees, and no possible settlements or payouts as a result of filed lawsuits.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
As a former Winfire subscriber, I can feel the pain of Northpoint subscribers. However, there is an unfortunate chain of events that these ISP failures seem to have in common. Step One: Company runs out of money and expects suppliers to continue supplying without payment. Step Two: Company, with even less money, is unable to continue payment for their infastructure. Step Three: Company goes bankrupt. Network shutdown happens either before this or shortly afterward. Step Four: Subscribers are left in the dust. Regulatory agencies and upset consumers can stomp their feet all they want. But a sad truth remains. Who is going to bring the networks back up when they are ordered to? The company has laid off the people who could do such a thing. There's no money to hire consultants to do it. The only option seems to be government bailouts. I find this option to be unlikely to be exercised. It is my belief that ISP's should be required to carry insurance policies or trusts. Many other industries have this sort of requirement. Although ISP's do not perform the same type of inherently dangerous activities as these other industries, this would be a smart option. Companies who receive large amounts of money from going public or from venture capitalists should be required to take a portion and purchase insurance or set up a trust account for their subscribers. The payout or subsequent income could help keep customers connected while the filthy details of bankrupcy, reorganization, or disbandment are taking place. This is not the only solution, but it is clear that something must be done. The promise of broadband is a wonderful one, but responsiblity and fair consumer practices must take center stage when a company decides to throw its hat into the fracass. Just my two cents.
Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Three Orange Whips!
That's pretty funny: "CPUC Tells Northpoint to Reboot, Please".
No? Well maybe that's why I'm not a moderator. (At least not on this thread anymore :])
I've been contracting to a US government agency for the last 8 months, and I'm seriously considering cheating on my taxes. If you knew how the government spends your money you would never pay taxes again. Here is an example. The US government has the idea that it needs to help small business. So any contract decision is supposed to favor small businesses. We ordered a copy of Backup Exec about two months ago. In private industry you just get on the website of your favorite store and buy it. Here is our story. First there is a week of paperwork to be done and a few authorizations to be obtained. Next the order goes from our office in NYC to the contracting office in Philadelphia. It sat there for the last two months. On wednesday they called us and said we couldn't order it from CDW.com because it wasn't a small business. Even though they had a GSA contract. The same crap happens with computers. We're a Dell shop and get all our quotes from Dell's website. The process is the same except the contracting office in Philly usually goes to a reseller to order the computers. Don't know how much it costs. No extra tech support. Just have to make sure they go thru a small business no matter how much it costs.
A state-owned ISP works great until someone starts bitching about things like child-porn and warez being bandied about. Then it's all bad...
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--hongpong.com
It is really interesting to see this same idea being equated with ISPs. If anything, it shows how important and and integral part of our lives the internet has become. So in this case, I agree with the State of California. Northpoint provides a valuable service that is a necessary part of economic survival for many businesses. They can't just pull the plug.
Of course, a similar situation has occurred in the past when the government has forced striking workers back to work, or that failing, manned their positions with soldiers. Sergeant Sys Admin anyone?
Ah yes, the "People's Kleptocracy of California". If you were a utility (of any sort) would you willingly choose to do business in this state? Anyway, they do have a good point. I should be entitled to free plumbers, lawyers and food. After all, let the "big corporations" pay for it. Bread, circuses and $300 tax rebates, baby that's what its all about. Gad have we really fallen this much as a country??
Sex is heriditary, if your parents didn't have it chances are good you won't either.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
-George Carlin
All I here is how bad the broadband internet access is in the USA or Canada, My heart bleads for all of you, At least you have a chance at broadband unless u live in one town in Ireland which our Telecomunications company was testing broadband you haven
I don't see what the big problem is. After all, California has managed to legislate free electricity into existence from nothingness. Free network support and uptime with no employees or cash should be just a easy, given a sufficiency of lawyers and and paperwork.
Meanwhile, in the real world.....
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"free" in this cases does not mean "Free" as in either speech, software, or beer, but rather means "free" as in "you get what you pay for". In other words: nothing.
This is probably off topic. Bite me.
Nasty, expensive, un-maintainable kluges ALWAYS win over the technically sweet solution...
I totally beg to differ. It depends on what the victory conditions are. If the goal is to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible with the absolute minimum of initial outlay, then kludges have a distinct advantage. At least in the short term. But that doesn't always mean they 'win'.
If the goal of the project is the project itself instead of profitability, then kludges are a distinct disadvantage. It's the "Software as Art" vs "Software as Business" thing.
Sometimes stuff done for the sake of being done well also 'wins' in the business model as well. This is usually unintentional, but take your victories as they come. The first example that comes to mind (this being Slashdot) is the Free Software movement. Granted, there are still a lot of kludges in most open source projects, but at least they're elegant kludges. Granted also, there's still a lot more Microsoft machines out there than Linux (or freeBSD or openBSD or whatever), but the numbers are growing and the game is far from over.
State Owned Industry == Communism
State Run Industry == Fascism
This is true. Look it up. And we all know about the success histories of both forms of government.
Like some others here, I used to work in government contracting. What a nightmare that was. It was definately "Your Tax Dollars at Play". And with our government, your tax dollars like to play Dodgeball. On one contract, we were required to partner with one of our competitors because they qualified as a "small business" and we did not. They had almost a hundred employees. There were only eight of us. We had to split the budget 50 / 50, but we were expected to do all the manufacturing while they "managed" the project. By the time we worked out all the contract terms and budgeting stupidity (and paid a lot of money to the lawyers), we only had two months left of the original twelve to actually complete the contract and only a third of the original budget.
When a private company performs badly, you can allways take your business elsewhere or start your own company to do things properly. It can be very difficult and messy if you try to do the same thing with government.
You get a all expense paid trip to the land of NO INTERNET SERVICE. And as a bonus you get to dust off your analog modem and reinstall it and download a copy of doom at 300baud. And lastly for our runner up contestant you get a voucher to get ripped off by your local pawn shop where you will be at to sell your dsl equipment.
This order only affects Northpoint's California customers. Unfortunately, they had about sixty thousand customers outside of California (mostly in New York, Massachusetts, Texas, and Illinois). Those people are out of luck.
Maybe it's time to consider state owned and run high-speed internet providers. Increasingly, it looks like private enterprise is unable to meet the needs of the public for reliable high-speed connectivity, especially in less populated areas of the country. The way things have been going recently, the only way a substantial portion of the population is going to get dependable broadband is if the government steps in and provides it.
Ron E, Where are you, I miss you so much...