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Covad Planning For Chapter 11
Logic writes: "According to their press release, Covad Communications Group, Inc. is preparing to file for Chapter 11 protection for restructuring. One of the most important points in the release is Covad Communications Group, Inc.'s operating companies, which provide DSL services to customers, are not expected to be included in the court-supervised proceeding and will continue to operate in the ordinary course of business without any court imposed restrictions,' meaning that the operating companies which deal with service providers (such as Speakeasy, who have endorsed Covad's action) will continue to operate unfettered by the court restrictions, and end-user services should be unaffected. Hopefully." As a Speakeasy customer (at home), I sincerely hope that my connection doesn't go away.
When Northpoint went under, my ISP sent me an email saying that it would be up for another 30 days so that they could switch us over to someone else. Two days later the connection died permenantly.
I just got the email about Covad from my ISP yesterday. Hopefully this time I'll at least have time to swi
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
At least you can choose not to have PPPoE. Some of us are stuck. And will be for quite some time.
If it weren't for Prozac, I'd probably take out a shotgun on the next Verizon truck I see.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
actually the Baby Bells want DSL. They just don't want to sell it at a loss. It costs over $100/month to have a DSL customer with internet access and a decent level of support. (Reference: http://isp-lists.isp-planet.com/isp-dsl/0107/msg00 046.html)
With Covad filing for bankruptcy and Rhythms doing the same, I'd like to put in a plug for DirectTV DSL (formerly Telocity). They have resonable prices and are owned by Hughes Electronics so presumably they're a more stable...right? One more inportant advantage, they provide static IP addresses.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
That's what's happening to all the independent DSL providers. The Bells charge them for rental of the lines. Rent that the Bells don't have to pay. Therefore, the Bells can offer the same connection at a lower cost.
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Verizon charges only $20 a month for DSL in my area. But through arm twisting speakeasy is $60 a month because verizon wants more money. The fact that verizon only charges 20 a month shows me the cost of installation is not problem with the isp's but its due to price goughing by the babby bells. In my area I would rather pay for high unreliable dsl internet access then to pay AOL-Time/Warner for AOL cable modem. Shudder.
http://saveie6.com/
I have provisioned DSL accounts for several offices and clients, and one thing I have experienced with EVERY vendor is some version of the following:
1. Order service.
2. Get DSL modem/router in mail.
3. Tech comes to install, brings preconfigured modem with him.
4. Tech leaves, but doesn't take other modem with him.
5. Months go by, nobody ever asks for the extra modem.
Currently, I have a tall stack of Flowpoint, 3com, Netopia and Lucent routers in my server room - 11 of them. How can anyone make money in this way? Northpoint, I know you are gone and don't want the routers - but Covad? NAS? Rythms? Do you want your hardware?
I have a Qwest line ordered - maybe I'll get two Ciscos!
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
If you can find me DSL for $40/mo with the same start-up costs as dialup (i.e. zero) I'm your guy...point the way and I'll pay for DSL.
There area lot of people that can't afford to drop $200+ on startup costs and pay the $60, 70, 80 a month. As was pointed out in the first reply to your post, they have one line and dial in on it.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
Our secret, we have our own network. We only rent the lines from Verizon for a little while. Then we switch the customers onto our network. We tried it the other way and almost had to close the company. It's all how management runs the company.
The Bells are screwing themselves. There's no reason those cable lines couldn't carry voice. Once cable has enough penetration that's what will happen. That's when you'll see lower prices ($40) for DSL, with good QoS. But not any time in the next year or two.
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My parents love my high-speed access at home and the office, but they will be on 56K until the day they die because they can't justify spending more then $20/mo for dial-access.
It's got to get a lot cheaper before the bandwagon really gets rolling.
I don't know Covad's full story but I feel kind of bad for them because their problems may not entirely be their fault. I tried for 3 months last year to get a DSL line, Covad was always prepared to do it but were dependent on Verizon. Verizon never showed up for a single appointment and consistently reported that they did and had no access to the property. Turns out that was their standard approach to dealing with other companies customers. Pretty hard to survive in a market where you live under the thumb of the ruling monopoly.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
I was a Northpoint subscriber (through Best/Verio). When Northpoint cratered, I decided to go with Speakeasy, one of the highest-rated DSL providers around. I knew that their supplier, Covad, was having trouble, but hoped that enough Northpoint orphans would switch over to Covad to help keep them afloat.
Now it looks like Covad might crater, too. When that happens, what is my remaining choice? Pacific Bell.
I will not get Pacific Bell DSL. I do not want PPPoE (which is a lame attempt to pretend that an always-on connection can be billed like POTS). I do not want ADSL, I want SDSL (I want to run servers, dammit). I do not want metered bandwidth. I do want static IP. I do want competent, responsive service personnel. And I do not want up "upgrade" to T1 (because I don't want to get soaked to the tune of $300/month for a lousy 128Kbits).
*sigh* I guess I start exploring wireless options next...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
My service costs around $50 per month and somewhere I read that $35 of that goes straight to Verizon. That leaves only $15 for Covad and my ISP.
Talk about being screwed by a monopoly. Verizon's making out like a bandit whether they have you as a customer or not.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
This is exactly what ticked me off about Kozmo. They actually had something (their service) that I would have paid a premium for and yet they still attempted to undercut tradional stores that sold the same products. If they had just charged I little more I could still rent videos in my underwear. So once again, please charge more Covad - Speakeasy is lightyears ahead of Verizon in terms of quality and I will pay a very large premium for that. Besides, I write my DSL off on my taxes anyway so it's not a big deal.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
And I've actually had great service through Covad and my operating company... 30 days from order to being online, and I got a free router out of the deal because the tech wasn't supposed to bring one (and before people bitch about me stealing, I called them and they said to just keep it...)
.technomancer
..by the sheer ineptitude of providers like Concentric/XO Communications ("new logo changes everything" etc).
I had a T-1 installed. Worked beautifully. Moved DNS, mail servers, etc. Cancel Northpoint DSL service. Unplug DSL after a week or so. XO, the DSL provider, calls me to note that my service is down. Reply that I've cancelled my service, so please, don't worry about it. Covad calls the next day; we received a trouble ticket from XO regarding your DSL* no, really, I've cancelled it, please disregard. A week later, Verizon shows up for repairs; I send the tech off to lunch. Covad called me back three more times and Verizon called me once more.
If either the DSL resellers or the telcos owning the local loops had their crap together, maybe companies like Covad and Northpoint wouldn't go south.
-p
...and not have to pay most of it back! I'm beginning to believe that certain unscrupulous people are starting to take advantage of the talking-head spawned hype surrounding the "dot-com meltdown" in order to get out from under their financial responsibilities. It also illustrates a truism: No matter how much money is raised, a poorly led company will find some way to piss it all away quickly.
You're using her as bait, Master!
1) "Competition has no other choice than to buy product from Baby Bell."
2) "Undercut the competition until it's gone, then raise prices."
Number 1 sounds like a monopoly to me.
Number 2 sounds like a monopoly violating anti-trust law.
Contact your Better Business Bureau. Find some smart lawyers who want to make a buck. Does anyone else think it's time for a class-action suit?
[Verizon just raised DSL prices in the Pittsburgh area too. I'm just lucky that CMU decided to raise their prices as well and keep running their private happy little DSL service for students & profs]
What about small business that rely on DSL for there websites and connections (such as the one i work for). We had a hell of a time when Northpoint turned off the network with no warning.. Now what are we supposed to do if Covad and Rhythems go out of business?
We can't afford T1 speed or anything close to it and cable modems dont normally offer Static IPs etc?
Guess were SOL.
Dial up account is $20, second line is $20. If the high speed connection is $40, it's a wash. The reason it's not is the Baby Bells. They don't seem to want DSL, so they charge an arm and a leg for it. The future is probably cable modem.
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I never had a problem with BlueStar in the pre-Covad days, but a few months ago they were having network outages across the east coast. Ack! We were already shopping around for a new ISP when we got The Letter that says that BlueStar is being shut down. No mention of Covad DSL, transferring service, or any of that. TWO WEEKS LATER a Covad rep calls to try to transfer me over to Covad DSL. I say, "Thanks, but we've already made other arrangements. Besides, if I signed with you now, I'd have two weeks of internet downtime" (BellSouth takes a month to install a DSL line, and no, they won't use the old one).
My question is, why did Covad shut down BlueStar the way that it did, and force out thousands of customers that they didn't need to? I'm sure that part of it was that there was overlap with existing Covad DSL services, but there were some areas of the country where BlueStar was the ONLY DSL provider; those businesses that relied on BlueStar are now back to dial-up for internet access.
But, again...why didn't Covad try to transition BlueStar customers into the Covad network, and gradually shut down the redundant areas? Business 101: it's a whole heck of a lot cheaper to keep an existing customer than to find a new one.
I just signed up with another DSL provider who has happily informed me that they have scooped up so many former BlueStar customers that their router supplier is having trouble cranking out the hardware fast enough.
Frankly, I'm not surprised that Covad is going under, there seems to be a lot of deficiencies at the top. They buy a business that's making money and shut them down. They force out thousands of customers that their own sales people are scrambling to get back. My only advice to those considering Covad is to run away as fast as possible.
I remember reading here a few months ago about the major telephone companies going out and harrassing all the small isp's into paying up fee's. Basically under the ftc rules clecs( competing local exchange carriers) have to buy access only from the top 5 monopolies in the industries under price caps of course. Through corporate lobbying, isp's now fall under a competing local exchange carrier so AT&T, verizon adn all the baby bells are fucking these small isps including covard left and right and demanding high fee's and even sometimes bottlenecking their lines to make them look slow. I know someone who ordered coavrd dsl and waited 4 MOTNHS BECAUSE VERZION REFUSED TO CONNECT HIM!
.NT/hailstorm because most pc's will be smart terminals by then.
Thats right covard has to use verizon only in New York state thanks to some lobbying by verizon. Verizon is the anti-christ of all high speed connections here. Their serive has maybe a %80 uptime! no joke, its that bad! THey want to force this down our throats at any costs all in the name of bussiness.
THis really pisses me off. If any of you reading this use's DLS speakeasy and noticed their rates go up, well thank good old baby bells for increasing the prices. Notice a baby bells dsl lines only cost maybe 20 a month while speakeasy is 60. Hmmm I wonder why.
Usually the ftc makes sure these abuses never come but they are being bought by lobbiests left and right by oil companies, media companies, and now mega-telco companies.
If we don't do something except high speed access to installations to stall to a halt and pay $150 a month for lousy service when they finally arrive to your area due to lack of competition. ITs the small guys like covard who are the ones laying cable and not verizon and yet verizon is winning by buying a government to squash the good guys. THis bothers me more then an abusive software company owning the operating system world. Without a network in 10 years a computer is nearly useless. I expect high speed internet accessing will be required by WIndows via
http://saveie6.com/
Bah! Real "technophiles" just squeal the apropriate tones into their phones and translate the incoming 'noise' as needed.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Late last week I got a letter in the mail from my SDSL provider, DSL.net stating that they were switching us over to Covad in the next few weeks. DSL.net has been having problems (according to FuckedCompany.com). Wonder if that is gonna happen now?
Oh well, at least I am not the one that made the decision to use this outfit...
I run a dinky little ISP in Colorado, since 1992. We were the first to provide commercial ISDN-speed internet access (even ahead of the local phone company!). When DSL hit the scene, and the telcos created all the insane and unrealistic expectations about the service, I stood up in front of the 200 or so members of the Rocky Mountain Internet User's Group, and I told them that DSL, as priced, was not a long-term winning strategy for businesses. Bandwidth has an actual market value, which is entirely being discounted in the business plans of these startups, amid the sheer lemming optimism of foolish shareholders.
Simply put, you can't supply T1 (or 0.5 T1) speeds for $40/month. To say nothing of the capital investment requirements to build out the infrastructure, which are enormous. Or the tech support staff expenses. Or the marketing. Or the fact that the telcos STILL have a stranglehold on America's communications infrastructure, and internally sell their services to their own internet spin-offs at far lower cost than to their competitors.
But now, the media and the general public are shocked, shocked I tell you, that these companies are falling away like so many body parts off a leper.
Well, DUH.
Result: the Baby Bells win again. The consumers will have to continue to put up with poor tech support, idiotic customer care, and diminishing bandwidth. Oh, and the price will go up.
You got what you deserved, by not supporting your local ISP enough.
Those of you who believe that telephone service should be a regulated monopoly, you are killing the independent DSL industry.
The FCC should mandate that no local or state entity should be able to grant a monopoly telecommunications franchise, period.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I work for a small ISP in SE Kansas and I've seen firsthand how difficult it is to compete. In my market SWBell wanted to charge us $29 per head to sell DSL to customers in our area. After that I still have to pay normal ISP costs associated with bandwidth, customer support, in addition to end user equipment. We were prepared to do this a full year before SWBell was going to come in and offer DSL in our area because the equipment was already there waiting to be used. Our plan was to offer dynamic IP's at a base service and then sell static IP's for a few dollars more. We would have had a reasonable upload cap of 384 ot 768, somewherein that area. We really had a good service planned, but we found out through a few contacts that SWBell was going to have a special when they offered DSL. $35 per month plus free equipment. We did the math and realized there was no way we could compete with that, so we didn't bother.
I don't see how they can justify charging us $29 per head for JUST the local loop and then selling the entire service for $35 themselves, but thats what they did.
In January we found out that prices have risen to $49 a month and there are no longer deals on equipment.
Now we see they have been doing this all over the country. The operating proceedure seems to be price the competition out of the market and then raise prices.
In the end everybody loses but SWBell. I don't know what the deal is with this, but I wish someone would have done something.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Yeah, so their service sucked (the technician was scheduled to do my install from "8am-12pm", but arrived at 1:30pm without apology), but I might just miss them. In the end, I did get DSL service with a static IP for about $50/month.
Now, sure, there's still Verizon (bleh), but I don't think I'd want to use them due to their penchant for PPPoE. So, when I move, I might just have to sign up for cable-modem service (yeah, it may not offer a static IP, but at least I wouldn't have to suffer through PPPoE).
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
People want bandwidth, they need bandwidth. The problems is the larger Phone companies want to strangle off the mom and pop isp's, then own the entire market. I ordered my DSL from Covad, Verizon came out and asked why I didnt order from them, and stated if I didn't switch, my order wouldn't go through. Totally illegal, but what could I do? I switched to verizon.
Also, Speakeasy is my current idsl isp, they have the best customer support I have seen in a larger ISP. But I hear thier customer service had to restructure, they were pretty bad.
They let me send email out through their SMTP servers, Verizon wouldn't. I even host my domain with a smaller hosting service, just because when I called and asked about getting SSH installed on the servers and telnet turned off, they forwarded me to the sys-admin, and she said somehow our server was skipped, and she installed it later that day.
This whole thing has me pissed off, its not bad enough the Telcos wont provide the service, they can run the people who do out of business. All with our Federal Governments blessings.