Excite@Home May Have To Call It Quits

Plazm writes: "C|net has a story (printer friendly version, of course) that just cropped up this morning about Excite@Home being in financial trouble. Will they befall the same fate as Covad and Loki? Good thing I just purchased my cable modem and broadband service through @Home last week so they could go out of business the next."

Comments

Given they're reputation...

[r1ch]

for (no) customer service, it's not really surprising. I have never heard anything positive said about excite@home

Re:Given they're reputation...

[r1ch]

and yes, I know that it should be "they", not "they're" - it's been a long day, okay? ;-)

Re:Given they're reputation...

[ILoveMandrake]

I admit, they do have the crappiest customer service imaginable, and they are complete imbusils, however for $40 a month I get 2.0 - 2.8 Mbits/s which is amazingly fast for the price. I use linux which they don't support anyway, so I wouldn't get customer service regardless of its quality.

Just me .02

Re:Given they're reputation...

[murr]

Actually, my own experience with them ws sort of ok, although I'm a rather technical guy and I'm not sure whether a layperson could have made sense of their explanations.

Given that Cable bandwidth is shared, I figured that their support limitations were a good thing as they kept away others who would otherwise gobble up my bandwidth :-)

Re:Given they're reputation...

[baronben]

Its great when its up, but it would seem to me that a good 10% of the time its down, sometimes for days at a time. When I call tech support I've decided that I have a 1 in 4 chance that I get some one who knows what their doing, the other times I know more about the service (from my many calls) then them. Sigh, but their the only game in town, so dammed if you do as the saying goes.

Sic Transit Glora

Re:Given they're reputation...

[Eccles]

I've had Comcast@Home for two years now. I had a period of poor connections, which they first tried to fix with a replacement modem and then on a second visit discovered was too much splitting and an attenuated signal. But the service was reasonably polite, the people were on time, etc.; hold time might have been a bit long. But in general I have n o complaints.

Re:Given they're reputation...

[INANE]

hmmm, I have cox@home in nebraska, I think its part of exicte@home and I have nothing but good things to say about them and their customer service in the 2yrs I've had the service

Re:Given they're reputation...

[stressky]

I've had optus@home here in Australia for the last year or so... In the few times I have had to deal with tech support, they have been quite helpful and friendly. Guess it depends on who your local cable company is....

Re:Given they're reputation...

[DEATH AND HATRED]

Ill never forget when their 2nd level tech support told me I was being port scanned so that my software would update automaticaly. I went off on him :)

Re:Given they're reputation...

[fishybell]

Well, I've been using @home for quite some time. The download is great (I often get up to 8600 kbps), but the upload is throttled at 128kbps to deter webservers. To make it worse, they've recently blocked port 80 (easy to work around). But to add insult to injury, they jacked the price up to $45!?!
If they stay, that's cool. But if they die, I won't be too sorry.

Re:Given they're reputation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Broadband will eventual be a cooperative
network of ppl in a neighborhood that
interconnet themselves and light their own
fiber, and interconnect multiple ring
architectures .

Then collectively buy a strand of single mode
long haul to the nearest metros and split
the cost of upkeep for the network, and
offer credits for the users to help maintain
it . Some college students might even
use it as a internship project and use
QoS to slice channels off the bandwidth
offering realistic speeds of 1/2 a T1
to ppl for $40 a month . When you
fractalize a oc-48 you get 3,200
simultaneous users , and $120,000/mo.
per strand .

Cable modems and some DSL see latency issues,
with a pure fiber ring it would near zero,
online and realtime appz like Voip would
not experience the latency shear they do
at times now .

Start it out as a LAN and or MAN, using
scrap fiber, and mechanical splicing techniques.

lighting the long haul will be the real
issue/cost, but will eventually result
in DWDM or OTDM for long haul, and
SoNET/ATM in the MAN .

330,000 users paying $40 a month to a high
interest account, would accumulate 12 mil
per month , 150+ mil a yr . It of course
would not start out that size and would
crawl at first due to the levels of
current distrust .

The money would be used to expand and maintain
the network, but the majority of equip
could be stored in co-located "ugly space"
as most telco's already do . Businesses,
persons, and schools could get a credit
for space, and equipment they provide to
power the interlocking rings .

it would be beautiful if it could be pulled off.

onsiterepair@yahoo.com

Who will be left in Broadband?

[StarTux]

Who will be left if Covad and Home went?

Pacbell?

That sucks! Why is broadband failing, that is a question.

StarTux

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[LordCodeman]

Because ingorant, uneducated fools use AOL when there are clearly better options available. Covad only has something like 330,000 customers, while AOL has 25 million.

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[demaria]

AOL also costs half as much. Some dialups are 1/4 the cost of broadband.

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Around in the Dallas area, the 3 big broadband systems are:
SouthWestern Bell DSL
Verizon DSL
ATT@Home

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[PurpleFloyd]

When you factor in the cost of a second phone line (about $20-25/mo where I live), plus the cost of a decent ISP (another 15-20 bucks), @home and dsl are very competitively priced. In fact, for our family, broadband was cheaper than a second phone line + 'net access. Unfortunately, many people don't know their options or are turned off by a $45/mo price upfront.

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to dust off the old 56k modem guys. :-) Seriously though, there's no profit to be made in providing consumers with high speed Internet access for around $50/month when the broadband providers themselves are paying 20 times that for transit. Either they have to radically oversubscribe their network resulting in shitty service or they end up bankrupt. Take your pick. Better/Faster/Cheaper. Which two would you like? It's the NASA analogy. We made the Mars probes faster and cheaper but 66% of them fail on their missions!

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[gstovall]

Why would they be paying that much for transit? There is plenty of fiber capacity available, and there are companies with a secure business case of providing 100Mbps (going to 1Gbps) point to point across the whole continent for $1K/month. Transit is not the expensive part, near as I can tell. I believe it's the last mile effect again. It's just way expensive to actually get TO your house.

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[dewke]

Because ingorant, uneducated fools use AOL when there are clearly better options available. Covad only has something like 330,000 customers, while AOL has 25 million. Sad thing is that Covad and other broadband companies aren't trying to get their service available to new markets. I live in Northern Virginia and there are few broadband options in my county (Loudoun), yet if I go to Fairfax county I can have cable, dsl etc... I have to wonder why neither Adelphia (Cable company) or Verizon haven't pushed to get broadband here yet other counties have both. I even tried to get idsl installed (a step up from ISDN) until Covad cancelled the order 2x for a variety of reasons. Now the prohibitive monthly rate plus the $600 installation fee keep me from getting a trickle of real broadband. Until affordable broadband is available to more than selected markets AOL and its ilk will continue to own the market. dewke

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[babymac]

Why is broadband failing?

I can tell you why broadband is failing. Here is the prime reason...Number One:

All of these companies spend way too much time and money developing their "software" and "portals."

All I want from an ISP is an IP address (or a DHCP name), maybe an e-mail address or two and a reliable, speedy connection! I DON'T want:

- a browser that takes me to the ISPs lame-ass page on start up.
- ISP spyware, etc.

If broadband ISPs would actually focus on things their customers want, they would be in a much better position today.

The second and third reasons why these ISPs are dying: generally, their customer service sucks and they charge too much.

Yes, they charge too much and are going out of business. If they charged less, maybe more people would use their service...go figure.

CTP

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, add in the cost of switches to light that fiber up, routers to handle the TCP/IP traffic, redundant links to handle failures, support people to set it all up, and people to manage those people and you end up with an organization requiring $500 million/year and millions of customers before it can make a profit.

Re:Who will be left in Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since my company pays for the second line and I can use their firewall and proxy I have a hard time convincing my wife that $40 is reasonable for RoadRunner. Not sure if I should love or hate my completely free dialup.

I have a DRY sense of humor

[docstrange]

I can see it now. Hungry unemployed IT workers lined up at the @homeless shelter.

Why?

[NineNine]

Does anybody happen to know WHY these cable Internet companies are going under? They have more business than they can keep up with, which is usually a good thing, unless you're not pricing your product high enough to make a profit. Is that the problem? I'm really stumped, here.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is, they don't know how to run a business. They're just the next wave of dotcoms, essentially. They don't realize that you shouldn't start throwing money at everything you possibly can. You gotta make your revenue exceed your expenses, otherwise you fail.

That's really such a simple concept, I don't know why no new businesses seem to understand that.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

A: Economic slump.

They're ATT, they know how to run business (and spies and small countries ; ) the problem is no one has ever managed "new economy" sector businesses through a major economic slump. Personally, I wouldn't bet on @home going down.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the Excite half of Excite@Home. Excite is (was) a content portal that relied on ad revenue (from it's portal, search engine, chat rooms, groups, Webshots, Blue Mountain Arts) to make money.

Maybe @Home might have survived if it didn't have Excite to drag it down.

(Former Excite@Home employee)

Re:Why?

[Kenyaman]

Is. I use it daily. Though every once it a while I try to access some content and get told, "Sorry. That's only for @home users." You can drag my static IP and DSL line from my cold, dead fingers. Well, the static IP. I'd happly convert to an OC-3 if I could afford it. :)

Re:Why?

[Alien54]

The way I see it:

1. have a dotcom business plan. Original incestors get in, get rich, sell out.
2. Adopt the typical bean counter attitude of "Anything that is not a profit is an expense" Start cutting expenses. (I am reminded of an old cartoon where picture used to illustrate reducing everything to core elements was an apple with all of the meat of the apple eaten away, leaving just the core)
3. Have some competitors who are willing and able to help push you over the edge by being slow on service to your valued accounts
4. have a business plan that accumulates profits too far in the future.
5. etc.

You get the idea

(yes I see the typo. I was going to fix it, then thought better of it)

- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -

Re:Why?

[sinan]

Let's do the math. $45 per month. It costs about $100 to send a technician to your house for customer service. One service call and they are out of two and a half months revenues. That is revenues, not profit. If you amortize it with profits, then they are out more like a years profits. So if 8 percent of people have a truck roll once a year , that is a zero profit situation. I always said the service model is unsustainable at $45 per month. I think they have to go to a tiered service model. No customer service should be $45 per month. For that you should only get line problem calls and no service once the signal is in your house. If you want customer service it should be around $80 per month. Only one false alarm , on premises call would be allowed per year for that price. Anyhting after that would be chargable to the customer at $50 per call. Computer help would be available thru their installed software by remote access. I've had @home for 4 years, and very happy with it. The last time I called them was 30 months ago, when the modem died and they replaced it. I pay for 3 computers. I also have 5-static IP DSL from Qwest ( for 3 years now) and that costs me $80 per month. I am happy to pay the price as long as it assures my ISP's survival.

The way it is now it is unsustainable. In my opinion the service (@home) is worth easily $80 per month, and I'd be willing to pay $120 per month if they allowed me to run httpd .

sinan

Re:Why?

[TheAwfulTruth]

Because the equipment and maintenence costs, staff costs and bandwidth costs (which is merely the equipment and maintenence costs from upstream) far exceed what they are charging users. Plain and simple. In fact the more users they get, the faster they lose money. Same thing with DSL. Ever wonder why a T-1 costs so much? That's the actual cost of getting that level of service and it's 10-20 times what the cable modem costs an end user. I've been an extatic @home user for almost 5 years now, 3x T-1 DL speeds always, for $29 a month! but of course in the light of reality, that was just way WAY too much to expect to last :(

Re:Why?

[EllisDees]

1. have a dotcom business plan. Original incestors get in, get rich, sell out.

Incestors? Now *that's* a business plan!

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"original incestors"? Where are they, Kentucky?

Re:Why?

[xenocide2]

I didnt know until today either, but @home sells services to your local cable company who is under contract to use them for x years. The problem is that the contracts they signed are good, but they're expiring/expired, and many competing companies are coming in to the scene now removing @home's near monopoly.

So in reality, people are springing for the local cable company, not @home. And the local cable company is looking elsewhere.

Re:Why?

[gstovall]

Ummm...the T1 costs so much because it's tarriffed that way by the ILEC. That price is well above the actual cost of service. The typical ILEC does not use T1s for internal traffic; if they're not using OC-x fiber links, they're using HDSL lines because they so much cheaper to operate, and they're not tarriffed.

Re:Why?

[BenboX]

The "why" is simple: massive debt. Like all other telecom companies that are floundering at the moment (Lucent, for example), @Home took on massive amounts of debt to build out their infrastructure. In theory, they would have taken on the debt, used the money up front to build out their network and infrastructure, and then acquire subscribers quickly enough to make the debt payments.

But it wasn't enough. I believe the immediate crisis has to do with a $100 million convertible bond issue whereby a clause states that if their stock price fell below $1 per share, the entire $100 million became immediately due. An analogous situation would be, that somehow in your home mortgage contract, if your house were assessed below a certain value, say $200,000, your ENTIRE mortgage of $150K would be due IMMEDIATELY.

@Home finds itself in a situation akin to an individual homeowner having to cough up $150K in cash by next Friday. Not doable. Only option is bankrupcy, no matter that you have a good programming job at some company. Unless you got $150K cash, (or $100M in @Home's case), you're screwed.

Actually, before someone calls me on it, I believe @Home actually has about $180M in cash; it's just that with all their operating needs, $80M would not be enough.

Benbox

Re:Why?

[weave]

Good post. I'd personally be willing to pay much more if they'd just let me run a mail and web server for my own usage. The only way to do that is to place some sort of usage cap (as in, per gigabyte or something, not a bandwidth throttle).

The nice thing about cable is the speed. Burst of speeds in short periods are the best (like when scarfing a futurama episode you missed and can get 200 megs in two minutes). If you want to use 50 gigs a month, there should be a pricing option for that too.

I can't understand why they don't permit tiered service. Your biggest support costs probably go to supporting the lower usage person. Those that are willing to pay extra for bandwidth, want to run servers, etc, probably are savvy enough not to need technical help. They are willing to pay, and the only cost is the larger infrastructure to support the greater traffic, so amortize that in along with a profit and get more business.

Re:Why?

[High Elf Pyrion]

AT&T still owns @Home, so I figure that Excite will die as a portal site but the @Home services will be handed back to AT&T. Or at least that's what I heard on Reuters.

Re:Why?

[aka-ed]

In Excite's case it's part of a larger story, where ATT chairman Michael Armstrong decided to make a new media company out of att by buying up a lot of cable companies at an exorbitant price. His rationale was that the debts the company incurred would be offset by the potential of nascent network they would own, and use for market domination as consumerist culture moved online. Inflated stock market valuations of similar endeavors suggested that this approach would work.

But the bubble burst, and Armstrong's multi-billion-dollar network lost value fast. While the "paper value" of a company doesn't mean much, it means a lot when a company is deep in debt.

Excite's situation is a fractal reiteration of the Armstrong situation, the same story repeated within the larger story.

Excite may be losing money on each customer, as many Internet providers are, but they need to keep prices low to recruit more customers so they can pro-rate their costs (especially the cost of debt maintenance) over wider numbers; so, even with a per-capita loss, recruiting more customers does not increase their losses. And they cannot recruit them fats enough.

With the Internet bubble burst, investors want to see profit now. And a lack of investors makes refinancing of existing debt impossible.

Re:Why?

[Rogerborg]

• they don't know how to run a business. They're just the next wave of dotcoms, essentially

Yup, except that the physical cableco's have capital to borrow against, so will dig themselves into debt rather than burn venture money.

The whole broadband arena seems to one big ego and cock measuring exercise. A cableco spots a telco talking about how much they're going to make out of broadband once they're the biggest provider, and decides that they're better throw a few hundred million at it to ensure they they're the big dog. They all hire analysists who loyally produce the figures they want to see, that show there's money in them thar cables. Where? Content is king on the TV, but not on the internet. The internet is the place where we provide content to each other. Why don't the providers get that? Why?

They suck anyway...

[DraKKon]

Who cares.. Crappy service.. you die.

Re:They suck anyway...

[adpowers]

I would take crappy cable modem service over crappy dial up service any day. I can't get DSL so I do care.

Re:They suck anyway...

[TheAwfulTruth]

I'd hardly call 3x T-1 DL speeds crappy service. The installs are also infinately less painful in the average than DSL install. Even people that complain about their cable modem being slow in the evening are only compleining becuase theyre only DSL speed instead of 10x DSL as usual. AND it's still cheaper! The service was good. "Too good to live" is what you ment to say. Too expensive to maintain for what they were charging. Oh well was great while it lasted.

right time?

[Teflon Coating]

This doesn't seem like the right time for them to go out of business. They are getting more and more customers every week so how could they be going out of business now? I would have expected them to go out of business after laying a bazillion miles of cable. It's not like there's very many competitors too.

Re:right time?

[supabeast!]

Excite@home is not going broke from their cable internet service. They are going broke from keeping up their stupid excite.com. They spend millions of dollars each month keeping a worthless portal that loses money at an astounding rate, for no reason other than that they might be able to sell it at some point, if anyone is stupid enough to invest in a failed web site. Excite needs to immediately shut down all things related to excite.com PERMANENTLY, lay off all the staff related to it, and then raise their cable rates.

Of course, being a bastion of the new economy, they will continue with their idiotic business plan, allowing their dotcom dreams to shut down what could be a successful broadband operation.

Re:right time?

[nohonor]

They have the best "TV Guide" around. ClickTV sucks compared to tv.excite.com.

I wouldn't mind...

[orionpi]

ATT gave out friends billing info including credit card info, all traffic runs through San Jose, CA (at least for those of us in the Seattle area), and they only have 128kb upstream.

So much for..

[DeePCedure]

my hopes to hear the Buggles do an update and re-release called "Internet Killed the Video Star."

Re:So much for..

[Drey]

Regurge already did the parody; it's at the Shockwave.com web site, under the "Shows" heading. I'd post a link but it's all Shockwave animation once you hit the site.

Going Out Of Business

[JohnPerkins]

My sister worked at a Wherehouse at a local mall which went of business. She got a job at this pizza place which then went out of business. Then over to Kmart whose stock turned to junk bond status. Guess I should ask where she's working these days...

Re:Going Out Of Business

[issachar]

that would be a warehouse. or did you mean a werhouse. a person who transforms into a house during the full moon?

Re:Going Out Of Business

[Scrooge919]

Actually, "Wherehouse" is correct. As in "Wherehouse Records". I always thought it was a stupid name...

Re:Going Out Of Business

[cheese_boy]

that would be a warehouse.

Wherehouse == music store chain.

http://www.wherehouse.com for their (almost) defunct website

Re:Going Out Of Business

[ethereal]

Somehow, I originally read that as "Whorehouse" and was thinking that if that's what my sister did, I wouldn't be telling people :)

Re:Going Out Of Business

[david duncan scott]

Yeah, but a whorehouse in a mall? It would be all plastic and fake, I bet. The girls wouldn't really care about you at all.

Re:Going Out Of Business

[fobbman]

Wherehouse Music is a large music and video store chain.

Re:Going Out Of Business

[ethereal]

[strangely apropos Simpsons reference]: "Better hurry up, kid, in ten minutes this place is turning into a Starbucks!"

Re:Going Out Of Business

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought for a moment that you said your sister worked at a whorehouse. Once I realized the sad truth I couldn't bring myself to finish reading your post.

Sorry.

Re:Going Out Of Business

[david duncan scott]

I find that life itself is a strangely apropos Simpson's reference, at least on Mondays.

so much for competition in Canada

[issachar]

So if excite@home goes under, does that mean large chunks of Canada will only have one broadband ISP? (Telus in BC & Alberta as both Shaw & Rogers networks are part of excite@home).

If so, will Telus (or whoever it is in your province) leave broadband at $40CDN a month? Are the rumors that they're required by the government to keep it that low really true?

And even more importantly. Do we get to keep our cable modems? ;)

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[topham]

No, @home in Canada is used for it's content and some of the backbone services, but, Shaw, rogers, etc own their own networks. @home doesn't own them. Think of it as a partnership for content and some, but not many services. (Shaw has actually been getting away from using @home services directly anyway).

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[RollingThunder]

Shaw is a seperate entity from Excite. They just share name brand recognition, most of the same AUP (I noticed the Shaw AUP is worded much more openly in terms of servers, in parts... reads basically like 'don't bugger the system and we'll look the other way' :D ), and from what I understand, Shaw is making decent money off their internet services.

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[issachar]

really? I certainly hope they don't pay much for those so called "services". Of all the people I know who use Shaw, I'm the only one who uses even part of their services, and that's just their TV guide which, despite it's insistence on setting a cookie that stores my name & location. (Vancouver), still serves up the TV schedule with Ontario's time zone.

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[pci]

Actually Shaw does a lot of there own network, and has the ability to do it's own email/web space. @home is just a more common brand name so they choose to use it.
Rogers on the other hand is completely dependant on @home for most of its cable infrastructure. But as with most big companies if it had to, I'm sure it could break free from @home.

Kind of like the way TELUS stopped using the Sympatico brand on its dial-up connections.

and all the user will see in the transition is a new email address. (i.e. @rogers.net or @shaw.net from @home.com)

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[Cynikal]

AFAIK, theres isnt any laws here in Canada regulating the prices, as i've heard of broadband costing upwards of $70CA/mo in BC, although i can't confirm that..
I've lived in Quebec and Nova Scotia, and their prices are near the same. But both places had at least 2 HSI servers, with the option of either ADSL with the local sympatico affiliate, or cable with the local cable provider. Couple that with the pomises of satalite access soon, i don't see a monopoly in broadband happening in Canada..

speaking of which, again AFAIK, The gov't DOES regulate monopolys, so if such a case were to happen, the ISP in question would be forced to split into 2 or more competing companys.

and on the final note of price, i've never had to pay more than $40 in any given area for HSI, and if any ISP tried to jack the price, they would only be opening their doors to competition as anyone with the funding could move in and set up an ISP with better prices. And with fair competition laws, the existing ISPs are obligated to rent their lines to competitors.

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[issachar]

Apparently even citytel.net up in Prince Rupert which has absolutely ZERO competition prices their residential HSI at $44.95 per month. see here: http://www.citytel.net/internet/rates/indexi.html

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand, shaw is planning on completely separating from @home, to create @shaw.ca.

Like it matters. Once shaw "upgraded" me, my downstream went from an unlimited at 300+ KB/s to 6 GB/mo cap @ max 200 KB/s, my upstream went from unlimited 200+ KB/s to 2GB cap @ max 20 KB/s, and my IP address went from static to dynamic. Their server is horrible. :(

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[MKalus]

By my understanding SHAW is building it's own network, Rogers IS using @home technology to run theirs.

Yes, they have their own fibre and such but I think for a lot of services they rely on @home to help out.

As such: Shaw will probably survive but if they pull the plug on @home Rogers is bound to have some problems.... Unless they decide NOW to build their own infrastructure together with Shaw (which in the past they refused).

Michael

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[topham]

same here. I don't use the content, except I checked when they changed to Excite@home and have the same problem with the tv listings you have.

They do use @home's mail servers for instance, so if @home goes under we'll probably get stuck with new email address'. Oh well, not the end of the world.

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[ferreth]

Actually, I hear that one of the things Shaw is getting away from is using @home's email servers. They are setting up new users on their own servers; will likely move the established customer base over too.

This is a good thing, as @home's email service SUCKS. I've talking from the POV of someone sending email to an @home address. You can't rely on email getting there; seen too many emails drop into blackholes going to @home.

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[billnad]

And that is the bad thing about broadband. In different areas speeds seem to change. I went from ok speed intermittent service with Shaw to bad speed and great reliability in a different area of Calgary on DSL. I am greedy so I moved back to Shaw in my new neighborhood and now have faster speed and better reliability than I ever had before....is there any kind of standards in High speed?

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

There was cable access in Canada before 'Excite' joined up with Rogers/Shaw and there will be cable after. Both those companies are making money in their broadband adventures and it keeps the CRTC (Canadian ver of FCC) off their back for now.

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a while ago, rogers reached an agreement to start combining their current use of the @Home network with Shaw's own, i believe for backup purposes. However, I'm not sure how far they are.

Re:so much for competition in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Let Excite tank. They're the reason we lost two Usenet binary groups specializing in videos. Maybe Shaw @Home will re-instate them once Excite (a world-class oxymoron) disappears.

Does excite@Home = AT&T@Home?

[SnotRag]

The article mentions AT&T being their biggest investor, but I was wondering if this affects AT&T@Home customers as well (namely me)...

Re:Does excite@Home = AT&T@Home?

[billybob]

I was wondering the same thing. If ATT goes through excite's network.. does that mean we're all screwed?

Re:Does excite@Home = AT&T@Home?

[Yo_mama]

I hope not, but I'm optimistic. My bills are from AT&T. AFAIK all the circuits are AT&T. The only thing "excite" I ever saw was the start page they tried to get me to set up.

Additionally, the article said that if excite@home folds, they might sell off the different markets, I can see AT&T keeping their portion since they already have the customers, equipment, etc in place.

I'd sure hate to have to go back to gaming on a 56k!!!

Re:Does excite@Home = AT&T@Home?

[steevo.com]

Yes!

Re:Does excite@Home = AT&T@Home?

[sharkey]

@Home hosts the AT&T Small Business Hosting division as well.

Sure puts an interesting perspective

[kypper]

...on the death of dialup and whatnot.

Broadband too cannot be supported, especially with the baby-bell competition hitting the area. I'd honestly prefer to pay $70+ if it would keep the competition and quality available.

I'm just glad I'm on DSL instead of @home... (switched 8 months ago)

Re:Sure puts an interesting perspective

[leppi]

I'd honestly prefer to pay $70+ if it would keep the competition and quality available.

[...]

I'm just glad I'm on DSL instead of @home... (switched 8 months ago)

It's funny you mention these things like they have some bearing on a company staying afloat. I payed 70+ a month for my DSL (through northpoint), and they went under just the same. DSL is not immune to the problem. :)

Layoffs

[ioman1]

I read over at DT about Excite laying off 200 employees.

Re:Layoffs

[Anonymous Coward]

There were also lay offs in February and May and more recently still. I was laid off in May (a blessing). The most recent lay offs were Friday.

They started out giving 8 weeks salary as severeance (well 4 wks severeance and 4 wks of a 'keep your mouth shut' bribe). I got 6 weeks. Now I hear people are being given 24 hours notice and told to go.

Re:Layoffs

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Four mentions of your web page and a one-line message. What does it feel like to have such little shame?

sucks to be an Excite@Home customer

[Rackemup]

I know they're not out of business yet, but with the threat of being delisted from NASDAQ in the very near future things dont look good... times like this I'm glad to be Canadian, and living in an area that only gives you 2 choices, Cable or DSL. Having less choice isn't really a good thing, but it's better to have 2 large, stable companies to choose from then 6 or 7 smaller ones with uncertain futures.

I'm sure someone else *cough*AOL*cough* wouldn't mind expanding their own network by taking over Excite@Home...

Re:sucks to be an Excite@Home customer

[sir_nas]

I'm sure someone else *cough*AOL*cough* wouldn't mind expanding their own network by taking over Excite@Home...

iirc, time warner owns excite which runs @home, and with that merger a while back with time warner and aol...then technically i believe aol does in fact have a piece of the 'pie'.

I am paying more than $70...

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

It sure hasn't kept competition alive. All that's happening is the services that are worse than what I have and don't offer what I need are the ones that are surviving.

Thank you phone companies. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. There is a special place reserved in my personal hell for you.

Glad to see Henry Blodget is still reporting

[sulli]

...NOT. this guy should have been fired for talking up all of these companies.

Everybody is on thin ice

[KarmaBlackballed]

I'm just glad I'm on DSL instead of @home... (switched 8 months ago)


COVAD filed for bankrupcy protection about a week ago. I think they are the last CLECK. Who ownes your DSL wire?

Re:Everybody is on thin ice

[kypper]

Velocet... tho I don't know who owns them.

Re:Everybody is on thin ice

[OwnedByTwoCats]

The incumbant local exchange carrier owns the phone wire, and services it.

Re:Everybody is on thin ice

[Rogerborg]

• Velocet... tho I don't know who owns them

The Camp Girls of America, if I remember my Illuminati power structures. ;)

Heh, almost funny...

[A_Non_Moose]

How their stock went down almost as quickly as the upload speed on cable modems.

I think/hope Charter is next. To go from 200K/s to 128K/s was ok...but to say a year later oh we ment 128k/s (14K/s)...bastards.

Does anyone else, besides me, see this as completely DEFEATING the purpose of broadband?

Moose.

In order to make the most people suffer you must organize one or more of the following:
Crime, religeon and politics.

Re:Heh, almost funny...

[Lxy]

I think/hope Charter is next.

Of all the broadband compaines out there, Charter is still the best. From my experience they all suck. Charter has problems, but my connection is constantly >128K/sec. Incoming port 80 never got blocked, and with the exception of their cable techs, their service seems good. I hope Charter is the last to go. Actually, I hope they don't go so I don't have to resort to dialup. Those $%#$^&$@'n bastards from the "other" cable company ran fiber to my house and I can't get DSL without spending a pile of $$ for a copper pair.

Re:Heh, almost funny...

[jcronen]

Of all the broadband compaines out there, Charter is still the best.

Ditto on that. Granted, I haven't really tried to do anything fancy (except run a "personal" Web server and FTP site), but their system downtime has been minimal and the service fairly good.

Government regulations...

[kypper]

The CRTC was mainly focused on Telus etc providing other ISPs with DSL provisionability at reasonable rates (ie $50/month).

It does not directly focus on costs towards the customer. It just means that it should offer wholesale service for xDSL to ISPs at a price that would allow them to be competitive. (Kind of silly, really... and Bell etc got around it anyway with the concept that the price & profit could be achieved with only 5,000+ customers)

If they wanted to jack up the price, I'm pretty sure they could. They'd just have to allow other ISPs to offer at the same amount.

Probably won't get killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

The cable companies still want to offer cable modem service. Far more likely outcome is for E@H to get blown up, and then the cable carriers will take on the services directly. E@H was always a middleman, and a particularly arrogant one at that.

Re:Probably won't get killed.

[rjmx]

I must admit that I never did understand exactly what the h*** it was that Excite@home, RoadRunner and the like actually *did*. Me, I have a cable modem service with AT&T Broadband. I get Internet access. Excite @Home does not seem to be involved in any way. Neither did RoadRunner when we had *that*.

So exactly what do they do? If it's support, then (based on my experiences) we're probably better off without them (writing random words on small pieces of paper would at least give you a correct answer *some* of the time). If it's the whizz-bang "home page", then this might be a good time to introduce the average user to the joys of about:blank.

.....Ron

Re:Probably won't get killed.

[sulli]

It's the backbone, caching, homepages, excite, email, and tech support. Totally commodity stuff that cablecos can easily do themselves now. Back in the day, cablecos were so non-savvy that they gladly signed exclusive agreements with @home so they wouldn't have to do this, but the world has changed in the last several years. I predict that even if @Home dies, service will continue as normal.

Re:Probably won't get killed.

[Creepy]

I wonder the same. I do know the browser sets the default homepage to an Excite@Home one, and I've found that some information is only available through that link from the Cable line where it is connected (ie, I can see it from home, but not from work, even though I have a username and password to log in).

I also wonder if they would declare Chapter 11 or something else. Chapter 11 is what Covad is doing, which basically erases their 1.3 billion debt and lets them keep running. I believe they have to prove they can make a profit without the debt to file chapter 11, and also that making a profit is unfeasable with the debt, which I don't believe Northpoint could do before they went under (but IANAL, so this is speculative). I'm not sure of where Rhythms is at, except that they're also in bankruptcy, and I've heard the situation is dire for them.

Overstretched

[blamario]

I don't understand this financial NASDAQ mumbo-jumbo. Another
article has more information on their business baseline. In short, they're doing great in their core cable business, but they have been investing and losing heavily in media. Management failure, plain and simple.

Re:Overstretched

[blamario]

Sorry, here is the link.

Alright, this is getting out of hand!

[Ulwarth]

Really, now. There's a huge demand for broadband, but no one can seem to stay in business even with hundreds of customers (both consumers and businesses) forking over lots of money each month for the service.

In an era of dot-coms with no revenue stream whatsoever staying in business for years, how is it that these companies are going broke?

Re:Alright, this is getting out of hand!

[Rogerborg]

• how is it that these companies are going broke

Well, see now, Mr Dollar goes out of the building, and around the block, then he never comes back. That makes Mrs Dollar and all the little Quarters very sad, and they pack their bags and follow him off to the happy land of The Mainstream Economy.

Sorry, I know you know that, I just couldn't resist pointing out how idiotic these companies are being. And the reason why they're filing for Chapter 11 (or 7) while .bombs kept going for years? I reckon it's because they actually have well defined products, and their investors can understand what it is they're trying to do, and see that they're failing miserably.

Loki isn't gone yet!

[FortKnox]

Will they befall the same fate as Covad and Loki?

Loki has just filed chapter 11 (protection from creditors) not chapter 7 (liquidation). Please don't call Loki gone until they do. They still have a very good chance to pull through.

Other major organizations have filed chapter 11, and still are major companies to this day. Sorry this is a touch off topic, but Loki ain't dead yet.

Re:Loki isn't gone yet!

[Mome]

Your optimism is...nice, I guess. But Loki serves a small niche within a small niche. I just can't see it.

Re:Loki isn't gone yet!

[Rogerborg]

• Please don't call Loki gone until they do. They still have a very good chance to pull through.

Why? Really, back that up. I also appreciate what they're doing and wish them the best, but, my budget is $40 a month for my cable modem + $0 for content, because $0 is what I have to pay to get the stuff I want, and I don't see that changing in the immediate future.

So, where exactly do Loki expect the rescue money to come from?

WooHoo my SPAM will plummet!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems all my spam is generated from users of the @home network. This also will cut down on the number of worms going through the Internet. I can't wait for AOL to go tits up so the Internet will finally be safe.

Re:WooHoo my SPAM will plummet!!!

[LaoK]

Sh@home was responsible for most of my Code Red port scan traffic too! Good riddance...

Redmond?...

[houston_pt]

Well... Someone get her a job with those "beloved" guys over there in Redmond... ;-)

"Merging" with Excite was pure folly

[ergo98]

@Home killed themselves when they merged with Excite: @Home, which had a solid prospect of a large scale profitable business, decided that they just HAD to dilute their value by merging with a absurdly overvalued search engine that was headed into the great abyss (Excite has been on a major decline while engines like Google conquer the market). While they've tried to make some value out of the Excite merger, as an @Home customer I have never used the Excite pages except to transition to the member services pages. Even the so called "Broadband" version is simplistic and borish.

As another poster mentioned though, @Home really is marketing and some peering agreements: I'm on Cogeco and they will continue if @Home fails, and likewise Rogers and Shaw will be just as strong.

It's ironic that this is occuring right now as I just finished reading the National Post over lunch, and one of the stories detailed the fact that cable modems are being installed twice as fast as DSL. You would think that these would be the good times for @Home.

Re:"Merging" with Excite was pure folly

[sulli]

This was a naked bailout of Excite and its investors (Kleiner Perkins) by the stronger @Home. Never should have happened. KPCB made out like bandits while everyone else got toasted.

Re:"Merging" with Excite was pure folly

[Cynikal]

cable modems are being installed twice as fast as DSL. You would think that these would be the good times for @Home.

Well that could infact BE the problem.
my old isp was giving me 400K/sec on a good day when i first signed up, but by adding more and more users, that quickly dwindled to 50K/sec if i was really lucky at 2am. Suffice to say i will never go back to cable unless they guarentee me in writing a specific speed. Sure ADSL isnt capable of going as fast as cable, but in my experience, 180K/sec all the time is better than 400K/sec sometimes.

So probly they're encountering the "expanding too fast" problem, investing too much to support their bloated market, and going under with debt.

in simplistic terms, play monopoly and try to buy all the lots right away and see how long you last.. or take your time and let your competitors buy the lots and see how long you last..

My thoughts on the issue.

[Wolfie87]

I have been a customer of excite for over a year now and have been pleased with what they have to offer.

Of course, here in Oklahoma the bandwidth is plentiful, except right at 5:00pm and for about 30 to 60 minutes thereafter.

I have even been impressed with their technical support. All you have to do is tell level one support things you know they can't comprehend and they bump you right along. Level 2 is pretty proficient in most regards. On to the point of this post....

In my opinion these ISPs are dropping out due to the burden of competing with simpler solutions, ie AOL and the like. Notice I did not say better solutions, just simpler to the average joe schmoe, I don't know a god damn thing about computers. These burdens I speak of is infrastructure. The cost of deploying the connectivity and not being able to convert the AOL magots.

They then tend to get into the pitfall that we need to conquer more areas and that gets them into dept and without a controlled growth rate that they can easily fund themselves they become so overwhelmed in debt that they topple under the load.

Well, my two cents, do with as you will

Re:My thoughts on the issue.

[mwright29]

All you have to do is tell level one support things you know they can't comprehend and they bump you right along...

Yeah, right. When I first had my cable service activated through @Home, I told level one support things they couldn't comprehend (i.e. "oh ... by the way ... I run Linux"). They then assumed I was running servers and attempted to shut down my connection.

Re:My thoughts on the issue.

[Wolfie87]

Well, my experience has been different I told the guys that I run a linux firewall front and formost on my connection to the cable modem and then even behind that and they had no problems what so ever

It sucks that this even happens, but yes morons make up most of tech support at lower levels

And yet here.

[SuiteSisterMary]

As so many other Canadians have chimed in, broadband is thriving north of the border. I love Rogers@Home, except for the few months a while back when they were totally fuggered up....

My cable's been solid as granite for the last several months, and I've had nothing but love for it.

If you ask me

[LordCodeman]

It seems like DSL and cable are killing each other. Because they are competitors, they price their products lower than they want to, thus bringing in less revenue. It's inevitable that they will eventually go out of business, while dialup still reigns.

Broadband almost seems like a nonprofitable venture-ship; $40 for a 1mbps+ cable line doesn't seem to justify the cost that these cable companies have to pay for their bandwidth. Then you have something like DSL, which only the baby Bells can survive because they are backed up by revenue from their regular telephone services.

Is broadband doomed?

Re:If you ask me

[jedwards]

Yes, competition is dreadful for business. There should be a single, government regulated broadband provider charging exhorbitant fees for poor bandwidth and no choice.
IHBT.

Re:If you ask me

[LordCodeman]

I think you misinterpreted what I said. I didn't say competition is bad; in fact, its great, and I think you are a mile off.

The only thing I was stating was that they can't avoid the bandwidth fees.

STOP EXPANDING

[miahrogers]

Sheesh, if they can't make money charging their current prices, stop expanding. Wait for a while. Hold it out. Wait till the money starts coming in, but please, I'm paying them something like 35 bucks/month, so are many of my neighbors. If they just sit on their ass for a while and stop expanding like the plauge, they won't keep digging themselves into debt.

Re:STOP EXPANDING

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, "if you don't grow, you die" was a motto of the dotcom rise and fall. There are too many problems with these companies and there is no way they all can survive. My company, I won't say which one, hired a guy for $380,000 dollars a year to make the company profitable. All he did was lay off people, not surprisingly, only enough people to make his salary possible. We need more mom&pop type companies where it is more important for the company to thrive then it is for the CEO, CFO, UFO, BVD, to make $300+k per year. I've had a saying for a few years now, all before the dot-bomb came, that say is: "You get a job as CEO, hire friends and pay them a butt-load of money. Then the company goes under, a friend gets a CEO job at another company and then hires you and then you run the company into the ground..and so on and so on." Employees don't matter anymore, just lay them off when you need a new BMW.

When you crap on customers...you get flushed

[pazyclout]

@home has one of the worst services out there and deserved to go out of business. Its about time that companies like them went under. SuckaS!

Re:When you crap on customers...you get flushed

[MrDolby]

Lol, you must have had a bad experience with them. I've been useing them for over a year now and have never had a problem. The cable modem has never even lost its connection.

I can't say much for their tech support because I've never had a reason to call them as everything has always worked.

Re:When you crap on customers...you get flushed

[mofolotopo]

Well, let's see...

Their Usenet service sucks
Upstream bandwidth cap
Even downstream isn't what it should be
Pig-ignorant tech support

Frankly, the ONLY reason I am on the @home network is that my local cable ISP gives me no choice, and there is no DSL. If I had any choice whatosever, you can bet your ass I would be elsewhere. I can see how for those who only use their net connection for surfing the web it would look fine, but for those of us who use it for more demanding things @home is completely inadequate. My only hope is that once they go under a better ISP (or hopefully several) will be available to me here in BFE.

essential service

[westcourt_monk]

I do believe our government (Canada that is) is all over the broadband/ISP's. They can't charge more than $50 a month for home use. Mr Chretian declared high speed internet as an essential service. So that means they are bound by government regulations.

Remember when Rogers@home suddenly had better service? The goverment moniters their service now.

Re:essential service

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually high speed internet was NEVER declared an essential service, that was a idea that showed up on a CRTC memo about a year ago and it became a sensationalized news story on the Canadian networks.

Re:essential service

[Anonymous Coward]

This has got to be the dumbest thing Ive ever seen. wow...

I finally get broadband...

[deaddeng]

and this shit happens. I have a cable modem since 72 hours ago, and so far it rocks--I dl'd the 2.4.9 Linux kernel (26MB) in 2 minutes. The service is through Comcast but it uses @home's network, gateway, DNS, and mail servers. I hope this is fixed; once you've had broadband, you can't go back.

Re:I finally get broadband...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's not true. Of course you can go back. It'll be painful though. Like quitting crack. You're going to get sick at times. You'll find yourself sitting in a corner sobbing for no apparent reason when you think back at how fast your net connection was. In time you'll learn to accept the fact that a 56k modem isn't too bad.

OMG... Help.. I *LIKE* it!!!

[phallen]

I know that I'm about to commit some kind of /. heresy by saying this, but I LOVE MY @ HOME SERVICE! I've had it in two apartments, got super-fast installation (in the case of the 2nd apt, they showed up on the day I moved in... I had @home server before I had phone service). I also have a static IP, for which I do not pay extra, but I hear that they are moving away from that.

But, I will say that I only use it for the fat-pipe aspect. I don't use their email and don't use their web-hosting service (host my own, baby... and they haven't filtered web server traffic/port 80 as some people say they have.)

Please, oh please, don't make Pac Bell the only fat-pipe provider in CA/SF Bay Area. If it takes months to get installed and people calling for customer service are on hold for hours, how bad will it be if Covad and @home crap out?

"Hello, Pac Bell DSL? Yes, I'll hold... yes, I am bent over... yes, the broom stick handle does have splinters...yes, I will call you 'Daddy'..."

Re:OMG... Help.. I *LIKE* it!!!

[Esandman]

>Hello, Pac Bell DSL? Yes, I'll hold... yes, I am bent over... yes, the broom stick handle does have splinters...yes, I will call you 'Daddy'..."

Ummmm......are you aware that you don't HAVE to use the phone company as your DSL provider? Telco supplies the line, private ISP provides the service...the one I worked for even dealt with the telco, so all the customer had to do was sign for the installation.

Everyone seems to think "O God!! I have to have as a provider now!!!!!" and it's just not true...

Re:OMG... Help.. I *LIKE* it!!!

[WhiteWolf666]

I'm with you. I dig @home service. I have it at school, I have it at home. My relatives all have it. My dad's company runs @work.

I dig @home.

I really truely hope that @home != ATT @home.

Re:OMG... Help.. I *LIKE* it!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well while I'll agree that you're right in that the CLEC does deal with the Telco and you don't have to deal with them, the same problems arise with time waiting for service. Generally my experience in ordering lines through the Bells have been that they are a little bit more effiecent (gasp) then the CLEC's. And the CLEC's tend to Mom & Pop shops, almost. But that does stand to reason, doesn't it? The CLEC has to order their lines from the Local Bell, while they might have an in that's a little bit better than joe average customer, it ain't the best. So in conclusion I would say, if you want to be cheap, cheap and want you line installed for home use, go with the CLEC. But if you need reliability and can afford to wait, say like for a small to medium sized business, go with the Bell.

Hey, I just work for a telecomm company, but then again don't we all?

Re:OMG... Help.. I *LIKE* it!!!

[WhiteWolf666]

How the hell was that offtopic---I was saying I liked @service. That seems pertinent to the discussion of excite@home financial condition.

Unlike everyone else on slashdot, I dig @home.

Broadband - Take 5!

[swordboy]

So now I will have some really angry customers who I do some VPN side work for. Currently, a few of them have been through:

• Flash.com
  Telocity
  BigNutz (BigNet
  and now to AT&T @Home
  

This is probably all a sham so that AOL can waltz in and take over the infrastructure.

Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[BigBlockMopar]

I can see it now. Hungry unemployed IT workers lined up at the @homeless shelter.

Ugh. The wolf is @ our door, boys and girls.

I blame it all on people who were stupid enough to buy shares of a company that promised to save consumers money by FedExing a $4.00, 30lb bag of kitty litter across the country. $21 shipping bill later, two day delivery time, versus going to the local bricks-and-mortar pet shop at the local mall, shelling out $6 and having a happy cat right away.

<sarcasm>There's a good business model. How can it fail?</sarcasm>

<more_sarcasm>Now that e-tailers have been brought back to reality and Napster is dead for all practical purposes, there's still no reason for broadband. No need for the convenience and power of having all the world's information at your fingertips. No reason why an AOL dialup account can't satisfy all your surfing needs.</more_sarcasm>

And now, as a result of idiocy of that scale across virtually the entire stock market, I find myself unemployed and unable to find a decent job. This really sucks.

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[skuenzli]

Actually, I know of at least one reason cheap, high-bandwidth services should be in demand: Gnutella. I started using LimeWire this weekend. It's really sweet, very nice GUI. Judging from the blinky lights on my cable modem, there's a lot of other people who like it (Gnutella) too. I recommended my sister download and install it (she's at the U. of Arizona), need to check up and see how that went (she is not computer-inclined; she can barely get USB devices to work). College students will *not* be giving up their MP3s. Not if there's even a halfway decent solution out there.

I do not dispute that shipping kitty litter across country is a bad idea, though, just that there are no uses for all that bandwidth.

Regards,

Stephen

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[garett_spencley]

<more_sarcasm>Now that e-tailers have been brought back to reality and Napster is dead for all practical purposes, there's still no reason for broadband. No need for the convenience and power of having all the world's information at your fingertips. No reason why an AOL dialup account can't satisfy all your surfing needs.</more_sarcasm>

Like d00d! U can't be serious! What about the pr0n ?!? We NEED broadband for the pr0n !!!! Oh PLEEZE don't take away my pr0n !!!

--

Garett

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[kypper]

We NEED broadband for the pr0n !!!!

Ugh. You know the internet's goin downhill when the only thing we need bandy for is pwerno.

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[BigBlockMopar]

I do not dispute that shipping kitty litter across country is a bad idea, though, just that there are no uses for all that bandwidth.

For sure!

Limewire and other Gnutella clients simply don't have the press that Napster got, so most users don't know about them.

Note the sarcasm tags, which your browser would parse if it were HTML 7.0-compliant.

[grin]

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[PRESIDENT BUSHCLIT]

What else then? To get first posts?

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[doorbot.com]

And now, as a result of idiocy of that scale across virtually the entire stock market, I find myself unemployed and unable to find a decent job. This really sucks.

Welcome to the real world.

May I repeat what you said? Thanks...

unable to find a decent job

See that? I'm crying. Oh, woe is you. That's called capitalism. That's the "old economy" for you.

<tangent>
Who the hell came up with this "new economy" slogan anyways? Exactly what is so "new" about it? Nothing, other than the fact that a bunch of young, naive idiots managed to convince some old money that their ideas were "foolproof" as in "you fools can't tell we've got no idea what the hell we're doing."
</tangent>

Are you a "new economy entrepreneur"? I don't think so. You're posting on Slashdot so I assume you have some common sense. But here you are whining about your misfortune. Are you mad you were suckered in too? Are you bitter because you feel it was "owed" to you? Do you think you have it hard? You're probably an intelligent person and you can probably actually perform your job duties. That alone puts you ahead of most of the other lobos (think lobotomy) "looking" for a job (more accurately, looking for a new job that's exactly like their old job).

Those of you who find yourself unemployed had better start flipping burgers and stop wallowing in your own misery. Maybe try and industry that isn't part of the "new economy."

Find yourself a "decent" job (you know, those kind that pay real money, not future riches). Try civil service. Perhaps the police, fire department, military, IRS, FBI, etc. They're not going away any time soon.

If you can't find a job locally, it's time to move. "Oh, I can't move, I love it here." You'll love it too, when you can't pay your rent and you're out on the street.

Take charge of your life.

You took a chance at (fame and) fortune and you lost. If you don't want to lose, don't play the game.

You'll never get rich when you're unemployed.

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[Anonymous Coward]

I reccomend your sister too, if anyone's looking for a cheap jewess to fuck.

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[baptiste]

You're posting on Slashdot so I assume you have some common sense.

ROFLMAO! They need to mod your post to +5 Funny! By far the funniest post I've read today :)

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[blair1q]

Y'know what?

They shut off my 400kbit-max Ricochet pipe a couple of weeks ago.

I broke back to using my 56(53(49))kbit-max V.90 phoneline modem.

I only miss the FatPipe[tm] when I want to see the Really Large Streaming Video, which is about once a week.

Then again, 10 hours a day I'm at work where we have enough BW to melt all those unlit transcontinental sillystrings.

--Blair

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[pmz]

College students will *not* be giving up their MP3s.

Many of those college students are provided better than @home connectivity right at their dorm room wall. Otherwise, the @home market might be much better. College students are probably the ripest market for file sharing services, but it appears all that bandwidth is just going through the $$$$$/month line in the college's server room. Not to mention that the college students get full-time paid staff to look after that $$$$$/month line (talk about service!).

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[LordNimon]

This is getting off-topic, but initially, pets.com would ship 40lbs of premium cat food costing $50 for about $5. And since I could schedule repeat deliveries, I was able to save time and money, and still have cat food always on hand.

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[pnatural]

You'll never get rich when you're unemployed.

and you will certainly never get rich working for someone else.

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[Anonymous Coward]

the blinky lights are Code Red attempts on your subnet. The ARP cache table on your local routers are being overloaded, so ARP requests are hitting your modem.

Re:Blame it on Pets.com and their shareholders

[Anonymous Coward]

Civil Service - Deal with dumb/irrate people all day without killing anyone and still be called a jerk at least a thousand times.

Police - Risk you life everyday trying to catch criminals like drug dealers who make as much in 5 mins as you do in a month. Bonus- Deal with drunks and perverts at 3:00am

Fire Department - Risk your life everyday until you're a 2 line blurb on the paper

Military - Be forced to wake up early, get sent to dangerous places where people try to kill you. Be forced to follow all orders or get sent to jail, All for about the same salery as a fry cook at a fast food place.

IRS - Get EVERYONE to hate you.

FBI - try to save America from terrorists and drug dealers, get shot at, anything goes wrong its your fault, get paid less then a WinNT sysadmin. Bonus- your old friends get really quiet when you're around.

Possible reason

[Arethan]

I used to work for an @Home MSO. (I forget the meaning of the acronym, basically they resell @Home internet connectivity over their own cable lines.) Well anyways, after the initial year of the 5 year service contract with @Home, a lot of them employees stopped liking them so much. In fact, a lot of the IT guys that were really happy with @Home's network layout, were getting kind of upset with their technical contacts within @Home. Stuff like poor response time, terrible email/news server uptimes. Generally, customers would bitch and bitch about miscellaneous problems with their service, and @Home would take weeks to fix them. Even minor issues would take days. (How hard is it to kill an email account and create a new one with the same name?!)

So what is the solution? Simple. You have a customer base, you have people pratically breaking your doors down to get your service, but you can't stand the ISP you're going through. Let's see...cable company with lots of money...needs high speed internet backbones...money...backbones...hey, doesn't MCI, the Bells, Sprint, Qwest, and about 100 other telco/data service companies sell internet connections??? Hey, lets get our own OC-192!

And thus, @Home doesn't get the contract renewal when the current one runs out. Not only that, but these contracts are specified in terms of geographical area, not just in terms of the companies that signed it. So, if the cable company expands (which they always are), nothing says that the new customers have to be @Home customers. The cable company can use their revunues from existing @home customers to build an independant infrastructure, and use that to independantly serve all new customers outside of the original area.

Result? @Home doesn't make enough money to cover their startup costs. And they file chapter 7 within years of initial creation.

Re:Possible reason

[Bangback]

The above message is a good explanation.

I looked long and hard at investing in @Home since they had a dominant position and just kept getting cheaper. The biggest problem is that all their contracts are up in the next year or two. So even if they were making money hand over fist now, there's no long term business. They won't get such a good deal as before when there was no market and they were giving away huge blocks of stock (@home was largely given to the major cable providers to get them to use it initially). Comcast and Cox (two very large providers) have already cancelled their contracts effective December 7. (Funny those press releases from a year ago extolling their relationship to 2006).

Plus looking at their financial announcement, they're only getting about $15/month/subscriber for mail/news/DNS/long-haul links. The rest goes to the cable company which provides marketing/installation/technical support/local loop (for the gripers -- most of their lame tech support is at the local cable company -- mine is incompetent but friendly and quick to answer the phone). Now that long-haul links are cheap and they're on the ropes with close sibling AT&T Broadband you can imagine what the renewal rates will be.

Bangback

Re:Possible reason

[Anonymous Coward]

MSO = MultiSystemOperator, a (large) cable company that owns/operates several different cable systems.

Re:Possible reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay. Thanks!
Like I said, I forgot the acronym. Charter is a national company, so MSO applies there. I just didn't remember, so I instinctivly thought it had something to do with @Home and Charter's service contract.
Danke for clearing that up!

Re:Possible reason

[Anonymous Coward]

That jives with what I've been getting out of my local provider of @Home, Shaw cable.

They're still unable to get @Home to fix my web space *since last November*.

One time I went into the office and kept asking questions till I got to someone who could answer. In that long talk the bottom line is they expect problems to be solved "next year" when they have their own servers in Alberta.

So, it's not rocket science, but I'd say that's the probable solution being done by a lot of cable providers. Which would mean @Home would be losing significant revenue in the next 12 months.

Bye-bye @Home but my god I hope I don't have to switch to telephone lines in the meantime. That'd actually cost more; I only use cable and a cel -- it was cheaper than getting phone service set up, plus monthly is about equal.

Re:Possible reason

[Andrewkov]

To me this doesn't seem all that bad ... Worse case scenario is @home sells off portions of itself, and now your dealing with a much smaller ISP who just leases their bandwidth. Suddenly you've got decent customer service, which currently is non-existant anywhere with @home. (trust me, it took them 9 days to fix a router problem that wouldn't let me connect to anything -- A smaller ISP couldn't do any worse)

You're kidding, right?

[jamus]

I spent over a year trying to get @home cable service, since that was all that was available where I lived. Now, that I have had a whole month and a half of decent service, they might be going under?

They better not file for backruptcy, because I expect a refund for the time it's been down!

Canadian take over?

[westcourt_monk]

Could Roger's afford to move into the US? What an oppertunity.

I bet some one in Rogers is thinking. Ok, some one is Rogers cable thinking is a long shot... but I am still curious.

Re:Canadian take over?

[ergo98]

Last I heard Rogers was awash in debt (which I believe is one of the reasons they're so big: They're willing to go heavily in debt to get and stay big)

A potential bidder I could envision is Microsoft though...Microsoft has been trying to eak into the high speed cable business for some time, so if they could take over the top level servicing...

Re:Canadian take over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rodgers was in the US at one point, but they sold out to someone or other. And the entire cable industry is heavily in debt (lookit AT&T!). Turns out running a wire to everyone's house for a luxury service gets to be a tad expensive.

Good riddance.

[Skyshadow]

It seems to me that @Home suffers from the same disease that a lot of other broadband providers do -- they don't really care if you're their customer or not.

This can be seen in their terrible customer service (and I don't just mean tech support) -- I've never seen a company where the sales team was less inclined to help you subscribe. It's as if I signed up for a magazine only to be told I had to staple the thing together myself.

I realize that individual customers don't mean a lot when you have a few hundred thousand, but they must treat everyone this way. That's *got* to hurt the bottom line.

Jeez Timothy!

[dzawitz]

Can I use my moderator points to mod down this article as ignorant? Is Tim ever going to learn the difference between Chapter 11 bankruptcy and liquidation? "Calling it quits" and filing for Chapter 11 are not the same thing, man.

Re:Jeez Timothy!

[Rogerborg]

• "Calling it quits" and filing for Chapter 11 are not the same thing, man.

Let's make a deal. You take the time to post a list of publically listed companies who've filed for Chapter 11 and recovered, and I'll followup with a list of ones who've filed for Chapter 11 and gone titsup. I'll even do you two for one. Go on then.

Good riddance...

[mkelwood]

I had @home service installed in mid-June. It worked great for 18 days then went down for 6 weeks. Twice I waited 10 days for a tech to show up and tell me it would be fixed in 48 hours. I fought with their clueless support personnel on numerous occasions. Finally I gave and told them to come pick up their useless equipment. I won't even go into the fight over installation charges for a service that only worked 2 weeks!!! If these bozos treat all their customers with the same complete lack of respect, I don't doubt that they will never make money. Goodbye, @home! I won't shed a tear. MKE

Call me vengeful...

[WndrBr3d]

But they derserve it after blocking my port 80 !!

TIME TO KICK 'EM DOWN A NOTCH !

-BAM!

Re:Call me vengeful...

[MrDolby]

When did they block port 80? That never happened to me?

Herman Miller Chair Count

[Anonymous Coward]

All you had to do was look at the Aereon Chair population to see this one coming. Ought to be a fun auction.

Raise Prices, Please

[Local Loop]

Excite@home: PLEASE raise your prices if you are not making a profit. My cable modem is essential to my business. I'd happily pay 50% more for the service than I am now.

-Loopy

Subscribers should be okay

[room101]

[[ full disclosure: I work for an @home company ]]

I don't think that the subscribers are going to get hurt here. @home is controlled by AT&T Broadband, which itself is "on the market", being wooed by many companies. Many of these companies are particularly interested in @home's 3.6 million subscribers.

Even if @home tanks, (which, I have no reason to think it will not) AT&T, and whomever buys it (which is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point, just a matter of who, for what price) has great reason to keep the current subscribers very happy in the near and long-term future.

[[ further disclosure: This shouldn't in any way constitute as "insider information". All of this is my speculation, gathered from multiple internet sources, all of which being available to the general public. @home does not keep its employees informed. ]]

Re:Subscribers should be okay

[Anonymous Coward]

This shouldn't in any way constitute as "insider information".

But since you work there, even if it is publicly available, you might get a swift kick in the butt for telling people. If I were you, I'd start sending out that resume soon so you're not out of work for too long...

Re:Subscribers should be okay

[room101]

heh, given the sheer volume of layoffs, I am pretty imune to being afraid for my job, if not, I would have gone insane by now....

Re:Subscribers should be okay

[mofolotopo]

>Even if @home tanks, (which, I have no reason to think it will not) AT&T, and whomever buys it (which is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point, just a matter of who, for what price) has great reason to keep the current subscribers very happy in the near and long-term future.

Well, that would be a switch. They've done nothing but piss me off up til this point.

covad feels comfy

[Anonymous Coward]

this makes me feel very comfy on a covad backed dsl line.

@Home won't die

[Baloo Ursidae]

@Home won't die. More likely, AT&T will suck it up. They're already a majority interest and own most of the infrastructure.

Is it possible...

[KC7GR]

...that @Home's rich crop of spammers just might be to blame for their current troubles?

Think about it: Lots of admins (myself included -- I have LARGE amounts of @Home's IP space in our mailserver's local 'Deny' files) start blocking mail traffic, legitimate or not, from @Home's IP space due to spammer infestations. Personally, with only ONE exception, every single piece of mail I've seen from @Home in the past two years has been spam.

Anyway, @Home users get ticked off because, all of a sudden, they can't mail baby pictures to Aunt Gracie on Orville's Internet Service in Flyspeck, OH. Why? Because Orville's is blocking traffic from @Home. Orville's other users AND admins were complaining about the spam load from @Home, and Orville himself decided to do something about it.

Ticked-off @Home customers bail when @Home can't/won't do anything about their network's spammers. @Home loses revenue. @Home's share price drops. @Home sinks like the Titanic.

At the risk of sounding mean and nasty, I'm not going to cry very much for @Home. Their demise means only one thing to me: Less disk space taken up on my servers due to reduced size of my 'Deny' file.

Keep the peace(es).

Re:Is it possible...

[Anonymous Coward]

@Home had a few machines hunting for open mail relays. This caused an enormous uproar from customers because the machines had to sniff around their firewalls to find culprits

If you like it, tell them you'll pay more

[irishkev]

I get great service from them, and I'd hate to loose it. I get 2Mb/sec down and about 200 up. And for those of you who think telco DSL will be better, man, think again. It sucks. Been there, done that.

I dropped them a line indicating I'd pay more per month. Maybe if enough of us do the same, they'll consider it instead of being religated to the Fucked Company hall of fame.

Here's the link:

http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml? ti cker=ATHM&script=2300

Later.

Re:If you like it, tell them you'll pay more

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately @Home has absolutely no way to increase the anmount a month that's charged. They only get about 20% of the monthly fees and the cable company gets the other 80% and recently teh cable companies have decided that @Home needs to take a smaller piece of the pie

Nice, except...

[Rimbo]

...we have the same situation here.

Cable companies have monopolies in their particular service areas. So what's going on is that there aren't 6 or 7 companies. There's one company, and it's going under.

It's not a "nice to be in Canada" thing if you're in Canada, and your cable company chose/was bought out by @Home. And it's not nice to be in America where your only cable service provider chose/was bought out by @Home.

A lot of people are going to lose their cablemodems in both countries because of this, with no alternative except DSL.

Re:Why is broadband failing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because to sustain their business on $40/month subscriptions, they need millions of customers, but they don't have the staff or other resources to support those millions of customers. They spent too much money too fast building their network and signing up customers before they ever made a cent in profits.

If you're willing to pay $100/month, you can get decent broadband access. $40/month may cover the wiring and network infrastructure, but it sure as hell doesn't cover customer service. tech support, or dealing with all the spam that @home gets.

The Internet is dying.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was just a passing fad, it's on its way out now. Face the music, the Internet is dying. Soon it will be just a memory, like CB radio was in the mid 1970's thru early 1980's.

@home is the 'backend'

[BroadbandBradley]

Cable companies give you the link to the @home backbone, @home gives web access, mail, homepage, startpage, and a stupid browser skin...

Cable companies are doing fine, they'll just need to dump you out onto the web from somewhere else and find you a different email service. Personally, I think what they offered as a start page was revenue generating comercially driven trash. Sales pitches weaved into the headlines like they're something new and all that kind of lame stuff. I'm going to be glad to see them go. this will speed up the opening of cable networks and give options when you sign up for cable modem connnections.

Re:@home is the 'backend'

[RollingThunder]

Do I ever have a deal for them... if they just alter that pesky AUP, I'll run my OWN mail server! No more admin costs for them! ;)

Re:@home is the 'backend'

[JoeShmoe]

Amen to local control!

I have to say, I saw this coming back when we had the story about @Home dropping the high-traffic movie newsgroups. Can anyone say bandwidth cost cutting?

I live in Sacramento. @Home has me routing through San Francisco. If I want to connect to something in Sacramento, my tracert shows it travelling all the way to the SFBA router, out a backbone provider, back on Sacramento. This is because @Home doesn't think it is cost effective for Sacramento to have their own NOC/POP.

Not to mention, it is @Home that sets these assinine policies. When Comcast first planned to bring @Home service to Sacramento, they priced it out (and beta tested it) at 3000kbps down and 400kbps up service, just like a few of the Canadian @Home companies. But apparently when the service went live, @Home did not want to have that kind of traffic running through their already-bloated SFBA pipes and so the service was quietly dropped back to 128 upstream. Also, even though @Home owns a buttload of Class A/B address blocks they continue to insist on charging $7 a month for each extra IP...the same price as leasing a second cable modem. This forces everyone to use NAT/ICS which then means if you ever have trouble you have to disconnect everything, reconfigure a single machine for access, install their crappy NetDiags tool before they will open a trouble ticket.

No thanks. The first thing I hope happens after @Home dies is the introduction of several new levels of service, such as "basic" and "advanced" with different levels of service, such as faster upstream, permission to run non porn/warez servers, additional IPS...just like DSL providers.

Oh, FYI...no one on @Home will be able to change their password for the past couple days because the ONE SERVER responsible for providing that service had a hard drive crash and is still down.

- JoeShmoe

Re:@home is the 'backend'

[Xandu]

Do I ever have a deal for them... if they just alter that pesky AUP, I'll run my OWN mail server! No more admin costs for them! ;)

I used to run my own mail server (and a VERY low bandwidth http server) from my Cox@Home connection. However, just this weekend the blocked incoming traffic to ports 25, 80, 137, 138, 139, 187 and 188. So much for that.

My favorite part is how their TOS both tells you that running http and email servers could be a security risk if you aren't careful, and also prohibits running them altogether!

Re:@home is the 'backend'

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. I live in San Francisco and all my traffic goes through San Jose. Boo fucking hoo. The entire peninsula is only the bandwidth capital of the universe. I love how you can look at a traceroute and figure out that traffic to "Bob's Hardware and Feed Lot" down on the corner is somehow being routed inefficiently because you see SFO in some host name. It's probably morons like you who called techsupport all the time and drove them out of business.

Re:@home is the 'backend'

[figment]

Cable companies are doing fine, they'll just need to dump you out onto the web from somewhere else and find you a different email service.

Very good point, but i think you're overlooking something.

What's to assume that other companies would be able to succeed where @home failed? According to a post above, (which I don't know if it's accurate, but knowing how much telco loop costs, it sounds reasonable), the ISP will get roughly $15/mo/person.

$15/mo/person for bandwidth is nothing. We get less than that for dialups, but luckily they can't use more than ~53k/s, and we have lots of them, so we can manage, though barely pull a profit.

Now you can see, $15/mo for a cable modem's worth of bandwidth, it's just not going to fly, unless the ISPs service sucks beyond belief.

Also the cable modem type of service requires a lot more manpower, as unlike a dialup modem, installation time and repair time is put a burden put on the provider rather than the customer. Also dedicated access means a lot more sysadmin related problems (codered, random hacking, etc).

I think the problem with the market is prices are simply too cheap. $45/mo is simply too cheap for broadband service, as witnessed by company after company going out of business (Covad, @Home, etc.)

If anyone could pull this off, it would be @home. AFAIK, they own their own backbone, so theoretically once they pay off their bonds, they'd be in much much better shape than anyone else. They have a good solid distribution channel (the cable lines), which Covad and the dsl CLECs have.

Being employed as an ISP, i would like nothing better than @home to die. Their pricing borders on predatory at best, stupid at worst. They have lowered the bar such that everyone assumes broadband is around $40~50ish, when realistically no company (as shown by the slew of bankraupcies/near bankraupcies) can make any money at that price.

Re:@home is the 'backend'

[BroadbandBradley]

but who is paying for the bandwidth? I mean the cable company where I live operates a sonet network that connects most of the city where I live. beyond leaving the local system and moving on a leased line from say sprint to connect to the @home backbone...who pays for that local-to-@home connection, the cable company or @home? there's no doubt in my mind that the cable company has to pay for field support and install technicians, and the cost of running and maintaining the cable lines, but most of this they already do with video and phone cable services, they all run over the same wire.

most @home customers would have a better time using my.netscape.com as more features are offered at most web portals (like webmail that @home doesn't offer). @Home was an 'ISP E-Z setup kit' for cable companies moving into uncharted territory. Several gazillion support calls later I think they've decided to go their own as they have several options for ISP services now, and know more what they want from the relationship. ISP's will be like TV networks, people will get a list of a few hundred or so to pick from just like they'd get nickelodeon or discovery channel.ISP's that allowed running a server would be like the premium pay channel

Re:@home is the 'backend'

[JoeShmoe]

Sacramento is hardly the land of Bob's Hardware and Feed Lot. Earthlink and Sprint both have their headquarters here, WINFirst is rolling out fiber-to-the-home service, those little plastic "call before you dig" markers everywhere. Despite this, @Home doesn't seem to have any peering agreements with backbone providers in this area. Living in Sacramento, I shouldn't be getting 700-800ms ping times to other Sacramento residents under any circumstances. If that's happening there is something fundamentally wrong with the network design.

Here, Mr. Anonymous Expert. This is the tracert to someone who lives TWO BLOCKS AWAY. Yes, I know, they are DSL and I am cable but as best as I can read this the packets are flowing down home.net all the way to the Bay Area, going through a hugely saturated router, and hitching a ride all the way back on SprintLink. You tell me if you think this is "efficient" network design:

Never mind, the lameness filter won't let me. But the above description pretty much summarizes everything with the only change being the backbone provider.

- JoeShmoe

Giant Honking Market Opportunity

[dew]

If you wanted to get into the broadband deployment arena, now would be a really good fscking time to do so.

Fiber pipes nationally are wildly underlit nationally, DWDM technology is continuing to advance at a breakneck pace, and, relevant to this article, you'll have have no more competition, save Baby Bell DSL offerings.

Team up with the power companies! They own the rights of way to metro and suburban wiring ways and "telephone" poles already. (A "telephone" pole should be called a "power" pole because most of the time the telephone company is leasing space from the power company to string telephone wires on it!) They're being hit bad by this whole deregulation bit and are losing quite a bit of money. They'd be delighted to find a potential new revenue stream, especially in a market that's clamoring for access, but has no outlet.

Supply and Demand -- there's a dwindling supply and a growing demand. Market forces dictate that someone's gotta have the "can-do" to get the power companies to plug people in.

(BTW, I am not talking about using the power lines for transmission of data (many issues w/that), I'm talking about turning power companies into ISPs by stringing fiber along their rights of way.)

Someone go out there and do it!

Re:Giant Honking Market Opportunity

[synaptic]

This has been done to a point. I know that Frontier/Electric Lightwave uses SRP's existing fiber network in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm sure there are others...

Re:Giant Honking Market Opportunity

[swordboy]

Not so fast...

The problem is that it costs lots of money to install and maintain this. For example: I did not have cable to my house at all. AT&T sends me some junk mail about FREE INSTALLATION so I took them up on it. They sent a tech to my house for nearly the entire day (I'm sure that those beers didn't help). So now AT&T and @Home are left to recoup the costs of the tech being at my house to install the damn service to begin with. And then there is the extreme amount of bandwidth that I use (I have registered over 3 MBit/s for hours on end at times).

The maintenance costs on the fiber alone is going to cost more than half of what the average broadband customer will pay every month. Where does the profit come in? Or better yet, when?

Re:Giant Honking Market Opportunity

[ryanvm]

I have registered over 3 MBit/s for hours on end at times.

You sound like just the kind of asshole that I'd hate to have in my neighborhood. I have a cable modem too, but I wouldn't make everyone in my district suffer just to run a 24/7 OpenNAP server.

Downloading the occasional ISO image is understandable, but don't be a dick when you're sharing bandwidth with people.

Re:Giant Honking Market Opportunity

[figment]

If you wanted to get into the broadband deployment arena, now would be a really good fscking time to do so.

I shouldn't blast you for being entrepreneurial, but knowing the financials behind an ISP, i can tell you why it's not a good idea.

1) Just because there's a lot of unlit fiber, it doesn't necessarily mean it's entirely dirt cheap. The cost for longhaul lines can easily run into the thousands of dollars. And you can't get fiber to your POP in most places, so you either have to a) plant the fiber yourself, or b) pay your telco a loop fee to get it from your longhauls POP to yours. The latter will also run into the thousands of dollars, the former is obviously a lot larger, but only onetime.

2) While the power company idea is innovative, I personally don't see how/why it would be any cheaper/better than registering as a CLEC, colocating a few DSLAMs in your local CO, and become a DSL provider, ala Covad. And we all know how Covad fared.

3) Supply and demand is a well and cool thing to think about, but it's a bit more complex than that. The first problem is that it's engrained in people's mind that the cost is around $40. Problem there, your average total cost is already over $40/person, you can't make any money.

4) Bandwidth is expensive. Ok not that expensive, but it's a hell of a lot more expensive than $40 for a typical moderate user's use of a cable modem. Owning your own fiber and immediately getting bigenough to be able to peer to the Tier1's is a good way to save money long run, but you'll have to be cash positive in the meantime so you can paydown your debt until you own it yourself. @Home tried this, but didn't do very well as they've had to get bonds from Promethian, whom from what i understand, isn't much more than a legal loan shark.

5) You can get around #3 by having a higher price. Ok say you charge $60/mo. Who is going to pay $60/mo? only the people who understand Quality of Service, and are going to use it the most. You lose the ability to share the costs with the "light users" whom you make a profit in, thus your costs will go up even higher, as a ramification of your prices going up. neat huh?

There is not a lot of money in residential broadband, if there is any money at all. The money is in businesses, who gladly will be much higher prices for speeds that may only be semi-decent to a homeuser. Normal businesses typically do not use a lot of bandwidth, which allows the ISP to oversell, and combined with the higher prices, allows the ISP to make money. We sell our residential DSL for $50-60/mo, and i can say for a fact that we don't make a dime on them, thankfully our residential advertising has been belowpar, and thus we haven't lost our shirts over it.

As an ISP, your best customer is grandma who uses AOL to send email to their grandkids once every other week. Low costs, almost-decent revenue. You don't get those customers with broadband.

Re:Giant Honking Market Opportunity

[Jebediah21]

I really like the idea, but the last thing California needs is more dealings with power companies. They can't even keep the power on without charging us insane amounts. They are no better than the telcos.

Re:Giant Honking Market Opportunity

[Rogerborg]

• The first problem is that it's engrained in people's mind that the cost is around $40. Problem there, your average total cost is already over $40/person

Yup. Surveys in the UK show that the breakthrough point where Joe Windows will switch to always on is only £10~=$15. Once you've had always on, you know it's worth more than that, but this is the price point where the perceived value meets the cash value.

My own story is that when cable modems were taking off in the UK, I choked at paying £50~=$75 a month, but bit when they dropped to £33~=$50. I'm currently paying £25~=$40, and I know and accept that this price is based on the farcical idea that the cableco will make money selling extra services on the back of the broadband connection.

As far as I can see, this "content is king" dream world is the same sort of idiocy that gave us the .bomb economy, the only difference being that physical cableco's can go on running up debts for longer because they have capital to borrow against.

Having experienced broadband, I would now pay £50~=$75 a month for it, and frankly I'd be happier doing that today than waiting and waiting for the inevitable day when my cableco wakes up and realises that they're taking a beating, that it isn't going to get any better, and that always on broadband isn't going to be in the £10~=$15 cost-to-provide bracket for at least ten years, even after writing off infrastructure investment.

The problem with broadband in the US

[bl968]

It costs on average for a small ISP 1,500-2,000$ for a T1 (1.5mbs) Internet link. This is in addition to the 400-600$ for the local loop charges. It costs 12,000$ give or take for a partial T3 (45mbs). With broadband companies trying to give every residential customer between 350kbps and 1.5mbps of bandwidth for 39.95$ a month, the figures just do not add up. When you provide someone a service they will use it simply because they can. This means that the broadband companies must add additional bandwidth to handle the users that abuse the system. This increases costs and ensures that they can not afford to continue to offer the service. What is required in my opinion is legislation (waits for the boos and hisses to stop) to require the Regional Bell Operating companies to lower the over priced bandwidth costs to the Internet service companies. I do not mean just for the large corporations but also for the mom and pop ISP's in your neighborhood. If the bandwidth is available to the ISP's they can then turn around and make it available for their users.

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Those prices are way high and if you are paying them then you should really start getting second qoutes.

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[biltmore]

Anyone paying up to $2,600 for a T1 is stupid.
There are many companies offering services for less that $1000 for unlimted 1.54Mbps with a CIR of 512K. I have even seen a company offering unlimited 1.54 Mbps for $549. Both these pricing uncluding local loop charges.

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[boskone]

This isn't really a problem. They just massively oversubscribe the line. Also, good ISP's will build cache engines in their premises to save on outbound connection fees. They also host mail locally, so if they are big enough, then a fair portion of mail is between their own users, which saves even more on outbound connection.

Just some of what I've seen...

Peace, out.

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[MoNsTeR]

Price caps cause shortages, this is Econ 101 here.
I'd say more, but it really is a cut&dry issue. Want an example? Think 1970's, America, gasoline, do the math.

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[shepd]

If so, why can I get a third phone line anytime I want at the approx. $21 (CAN) per month gov't (well CRTC) capped Bell rate?

I've never heard of Bell "running out" of phone lines (save you wanting more than they already ran to your house).

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what you're talking about. The average residential user will use very little bandwidth, maybe 800bps downlink averaged over a month.

Let's assume residential users use 100 times more than business users. Compare what the cable company is doing to a company with 100 employees and a T1. Every user isn't using their 1.5mbps potential bandwidth, or even close.

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[stripes]

I've never heard of Bell "running out" of phone lines (save you wanting more than they already ran to your house).

They do run out of copper pairs. There is a fixed amount of copper buried. Around here at least if they run out of lines to yours house they do quote prices to running a new pair from the closest pedastool, normally a few bucks a foot. If you happen to be ordering a T1 they tend to pay for that part themselves (so if you are ordering a T1, max out your voice lines for the month, and get some extra wires for free).

I don't know if they give a price if they have run out of space in the pedistool. It would surely be pretty costly... I know it happens since I have used the last pair at the current place, and also in the one three places ago.

I doubt they run out of circuit from a CO, but it might happen. I've never heard of it happening though.

P.S. price caps don't always cause shortages. If I cap the price of dog food to $85 a pound, it won't really change things since very few people will pay that for dog food (I won't, I'll feed my dog people food first). If the price cap is lower then the market value of the good, then it will cause a shortage.

Or something like that (like it is more closly tied with cost of production + distribution, but market value tends to that anyway unless...). I'm not an econ major by a long shot.

There are other ways of avoiding a shortage. Like outlawing secondary use. In the USSR it was illegal to feed bread to livestock. If it was allowed farmers would buy bread rather then grain since grain costs more. It must have mostly worked since there wasn't a lot of famine reports (except, I think, in the 30s, and that was for other reasons)

One can also try to enforce a price cap only for the first X units, like C$21 a month for one voice line, but market value for the rest of them, that limits the potential for shortage. Of corse for things more portable then phone lines if the market value of the thing is well above the "first one" price, lots of people who wouldn't normally buy one will get it and sell it on ebay (or to friends, or whatever). So that isn't perfect, but it helps.

So I would guess given the lack of wide spread shortage of voice lines that C$21 a line isn't below market value. Beats me what price would cause people to rush out and buy 15 voice lines for multi-link PPP, but that price would likely cause a shortage.

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[marxmarv]

What is required in my opinion is legislation (waits for the boos and hisses to stop) to require the Regional Bell Operating companies to lower the over priced bandwidth costs to the Internet service companies.

RBOCs don't often sell bandwidth to mom-and-pop ISP's. Most of the bandwidth sold in T-1 quantities is by either independent but slightly larger entities, or subsidiaries or divisions of long distance companies. I wouldn't be caught dead buying any service from the ILEC unless the only other choice is GTE/Verizon.

Local HDSL (aka T-1) loops are about as cheap as you'd want them. Any cheaper and your provider won't roll a truck immediately when it goes down.

Point being, if you don't know exactly what you're talking about, perhaps you shouldn't be proposing legislation, lest you be seen as the same sort of self-interested whiner that begs for perpetual copyright. Nobody owes anyone anything.

-jhp

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[Bangback]

If they run out of space in a pedestal, they'll install a "temporary" line splitter (kiss your 56K modem goodbye) and install the second line. This could split an existing line of yours (normally) or sometimes a complete stranger.

Normally this will also eventually lead to a new pedestal being installed or replacement of the whole thing. My father got several thousand dollars for allowing BellSouth to consolidate two old-school pedestals in a modern one the size of a freezer on a concrete slab with room for growth. Of course it takes six months for siting, buying the land, installation, switchover, etc. BellSouth seemed pretty competent at this sort of thing. The techs were happy since they could park their truck at the new site instead of pulling off the side of the road and it wasn't all nasty and rusted out from heavy rain like the predecessors. Be nice to your phone techs -- you can learn a lot!

Re:The problem with broadband in the US

[Rogerborg]

• Price caps cause shortages, this is Econ 101 here.

The problem with simplistic rules is that you're a buttfucking retard. Oops, sorry, that just slipped out. Really, do the mathematics .

Broadband ISPs need to drive the price down and get as many customers as possible, so that the low use of Joe and Jane Windows makes up for the sizzling cable of Leeching Larry. They need to poach from AOL, so that they get people who won't figure out how to run servers or bypass their caches.

A free, open market will not work for broadband, because it's the ultimate Catch-22. Until the price drops (to $20, not $40), it won't be truly mainstream. Until it's truly mainstream, the average usage will be high, so the price can't drop.

@HOME gone bye bye? No surprise...

[TheClone]

I worked for the customer service side of COMCAST@HOME for about four months earlier this year, and to be honest I'm not surprised at all that these guys are in financial troubles. For one: they had almost about as many customers cancelling their @HOME service as customers joining. Also, I found that @HOME is great for advertising and grabbing as many customers as possible than it is keeping its infrastructure stable... hundreds of customers (especially in the New Jersey / Michigan areas) called daily to our call center in frustration over @HOME technicians not showing up to their houses for repairs/installations, being over-billed, double-billed, and week to month long outages.

Re:@HOME gone bye bye? No surprise...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to be clear that it's the cable company techs that didn't show up. Not @Home

This concerns me...

[Dimensio]

...because I value both my broadband connection and my ability to connect a Linux box to it rather than some proprietary crap that only works under Windoze. I'd hate to have Excite@Home disappear and either have my local cable provider switch to another ISP or have to use a DSL connection that won't work unless I'm running a MS OS. Worse, I'd hate to have a provider that explicitly disallows NAT (and can somehow scan for it)

I find this news especially odd because my local cable provider recently lowered the rates for @Home customers (quite a surprising move, IMO).

Re:This concerns me...

[fmaxwell]

Worse, I'd hate to have a provider that explicitly disallows NAT (and can somehow scan for it)

Most broadband ISPs state that you can have only one computer connected to the cable modem. They don't state how many computers can be connected to that computer. One computer, two NICs, and life will be good.

I find this news especially odd because my local cable provider recently lowered the rates for @Home customers (quite a surprising move, IMO).

It's not that surprising. Many of the cable companies grossly overestimated the demand. They got caught up in the whole fantasy about the "new dot-com economy" and everyone telecommuting, taking courses online, and getting all of their content on demand. Bandwidth, in the commercial sector, has dropped considerably, allowing the cable modem companies to sell their services cheaper and still make a profit. So now many of them have cut rates in order to get their user base up.

Re:This concerns me...

[Anonymous Coward]

DSL != requires Windows. I'm running a Linux system connected to DirecTV DSL (formerly Telocity). They explicitly allow servers and NAT as well.

Wherehouse

[wiredog]

It is, or was, a chain music store.

Thank God for monopolies!

[tswinzig]

Still surfing on my TimeWarner RoadRunner cable modem and my BellSouth ADSL modem in Florida!

Sometimes dealing with a monopoly is nice. (Yes I realize that is a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

Not to mention management problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should talk to people that have worked there. I've not heard one positive word about @Home from anyone that's worked for that company--be it in sales, customer service, or hard tech.

When the company has been run like it has been, with such managerial aplomb as physically threatening employees, constant re-orgs, constant threats of out-sourcing core business elements, it is a good sign to fire up the "subsidized job search" (using company time and resources to get the fsck out).

Good riddance. Unfortunately the clueless business types will be looking for jobs, and the odds are they will find them, while those who suffer from their actions will be out of work longer.

Just like Ricochet

[blair1q]

There were rumors that Metricom and Ricochet were still selling modems up to the day they shut off the network (Aug. 8).

The auction was done on Aug. 16. There are no details as yet, but the reports read like the spectrum was all the value it had left. The equipment may truly have been sold for scrap.

Bookmark this Yahoo News search for articles that might soon reveal the truth, or its journalistic equivalent, the facts.

--Blair

Re:Just like Ricochet

[Animats]

That article talks about Ricochet's "spectrum" space. What spectrum space? Ricochet operated in the 900MHz ISM junk band, fighting it out with cordless phones and microwave ovens.

broadband and dotcoms

[jpostel]

what bugs me about this (and dotcoms) is that the 'normal' business model (the one i learned in college) works on a five year profitability timetable. the idea is that if you can not turn a profit in the first five years, then your business plan does not work. some dotcoms came and went within three years! how does one

A. get money for a business plan
B. spend 25% of it on stupid stuff
C. not get shot by investors

broadband providers (other than the bells or existing cable providers) seem to be dropping like flies. i know that @home is in bed with att, but what is wrong with @home's business plan? are they trying to grow too fast? are they buying expensive chairs? does it cost more to provide the service than they are charging?

i personally know that covad has an excuse, because i have dealt with verizon (bellatlantic, nynex, and nj bell before them) on several occasions. in nyc the folks doing installations have been known to disconnect existing service while installing new service and then claim that they will have to charge you to fix the existing service. covad got shafted left and right by verizon.

until the telecommunication providers are deregulated and re-regulated with realistic rules (many are still from the breakup of ATT 17 years ago) there will be little government help with consumer broadband needs.

Re:broadband and dotcoms

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it is costing @Home more than it is charging and @Home only gets about 20% of your monthly fee.

more "statistics"

[Pope]

cable modems are being installed twice as fast as DSL

The problem with that statement, as usual, is that it ignores the fact that DSL was rolled out more places 2 years ago.
(disclaimer: I'm in Toronto, so will ignore Telus' Western operations for the moment)
I signed up for Sympatico's DSL the month after it became available, January 1999. At that point, @Home's projected availabillity in my neighbourhood was Summer 2000. Then it was Fall 2000. Then it was "Please check back for availability." My upstairs housemate switched from Sympatico to @Home as soon as it became available, namely earlier this year.

So, while it may appear that cable modems are being installed at twice the rate of DSL now, it doesn't take into account how much earlier DSL was available over the last 2 years.

Re:more "statistics"

[ergo98]

I beg to differ. I had @Home in London in 1998 and this was far in advance of ADSL being rolled out en mass to consumers in that area, and I know that the situation was similar in many other parts of the country: In large scale roll-outs @Home had a huge lead over consumer ADSL. Indeed many of my friends in that area are just getting HSE availability.

Re:more "statistics"

[checkyoulater]

Interesting... I am also from Toronto, and Rogers@home was available almost a year before Sympatico HSE (as it used to be called)

I suppose it depends on what part of Toronto you are in (OK, North York, actually)

Some neighborhoods have a better cable system, but crappy telephone, and vice versa.

Re:more "statistics"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the ratio of cable modems to dsl in toronto is roughly 5 to 1.

Nope

[Pope]

Roger's has been in debt for *years* and still has no forseeable date for getting out of the red.
Hell, they just bought the Toronto Blue Jays for $millions.

Everytime they sense an opportunity to get into another market, they buy in without care as to how to make the bottom line increase. They bought out Maclean-Hunter to get their cable business, and I hear they're doing the same thing to Shaw.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

No, incorrect. Rogers and Shaw traded cable properties. Rogers got Scarborough (Ontario) and Shaw got the province of British Columbia, $24 and some pretty beads. With all of Shaw's recent acquisitions they're at least as large as Rogers.In fact, Shaw just bought Telemedia a couple of months ago and grew again.

Incidentally, when Rogers bought MH they acquired and divested themselves of significant cable holding in the U.S.

Some aren't that bad

[DragonPup]

Actually, I used to do @home tier 1 support through AT&T Broadband in Boston(Former CableVision areas). My office actually provided rather good support, we had a 95% resolution rate(as in, the problem is solved in the office) at Tier 1(4% needed truck rolls, 1% passed to @home's tier 2). Not all of the customer service sucked, or at least I like to think the group I worked with didn't(we were all laid off, in case you were wondering, too) :-)

-Henry

Re:Some aren't that bad

[Optic]

does "resolution rate" mean "nothing more had to be done," or "the problem was solved"?

I've called @home numerous times, and didn't get my problem solved... but it wasn't escalated to tier 2 and a truck wasn't sent... so would that be a "resolved call"?

"oh, we have to test your line for the next 48 hours and then we won't call you back like we said. Then when you call us back, we'll say we forgot to do it or the test isn't done yet, and then we'll repeat the process. If it still doesn't work after a week, we'll just hang up on you."

heh.

Re:Some aren't that bad

[DragonPup]

Resolution referred to the problem solved at the tier 1 level. Sometimes, though rarely, we had to do a little research and call the customer back, which was almost always within a few hours. Having a truck sent out there is not 'resolution', it's a truck roll(even if the tech was sucessful, the same goes for Tier 2)

-Henry

Fuck them.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am waiting for @home for the past 7 years and now they calling to quit??!! Fuck AT&T.

The World's Worst Customer Service(SM)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they truly suck. Their idea of a help center was utter misery. Read this for fun and laughs.

Could be...

[gillbates]

because @Home sees no need to provide the service that they contract for. Right now, I'm using an old aol dialup account because my @Home broadband service has been down for the past three weeks.

Seriously, though, how did these folks ever expect to make any money with such poor service?

Why the hate with @home and Cable in general?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had @home for almost 2 years now and haven't had any major problems at all. The speeds I get on this thing have consistantly been higher than T1 speeds in terms of downloads.

Yes, my uploads are at 128k/s....but so what?!?! I'm not running a server here, nor would I ever need to.

Also, just checked with DSL in my area and the speeds are WAY below what I get on cable...and the uploads are STILL at 128K/s plus they want to charge me more for DSL per month than what I'm paying now for @home.

Don't believe me? check out Ameritech (which is the company providing DSL in my area) and look at their prices and their performance.

Also, head over to Speedtest and see what your speeds are. This may not be totally scientific, but it gives you a pretty good indication.

Using this link I get 2147.4 kbps through my @home connection.

Also, I know everyone talks and talks and talks about how bad Cable is and how slow it gets when people get on the same router etc etc etc. That may be true, but in the 2 years that I've had Cable, I've yet to see any slow-downs.

So tell me again why should I switch to DSL? It's slower, costs more and the company (Ameritech) has customer service issues that would make @home look like heros.

Re:Why the hate with @home and Cable in general?

[ergo98]

This is your computer on DSL. This is your computer on cable.

:-) Those numbers are bogus, however I concur: I have had great throughput, very few outages (though admittingly they are very annoying because the internet is such a critical part of my life now), and the value is absolutely amazing. I'm really perplexed at the dislike of @Home/cable on Slashdot and I'm prone to thinking that it's the pick-on-the-big-guys syndrome that is so rampant. Of course there are people who've had bad experiences (come on it costs $40 CDN / month! Are people expecting a huge line of net techs ready to rush to your house?), just as there are people who's Honda makes a knocking noise, etc.

Re:Why the hate with @home and Cable in general?

[mofolotopo]

I hate @home, because I've had their competition to compare them to. They are my third broadband ISP, and are by far the worst both in terms of speed and quality of customer service and tech support.

Re:Why the hate with @home and Cable in general?

[ergo98]

I hate @home, because I've had their competition to compare them to.

I use @Home and I consistently download 2x faster (even with the cap) than the best of 3 ADSL friends, and I upload over 2x faster (even with the cap). My outages can be counted on one hand and all except for one time were less than 8 hours. I have found the support abhorrent, however the hope is that you never need support because the same stories are circling about all the high speed providers: Long outages, dropped packets, etc. In other words it's just like a lemon car: You hope you don't get one, but if you do it really sucks.

Re:Why the hate with @home and Cable in general?

[mofolotopo]

To coin a term, my mileage has varied.

people are always more eager to share bad news

[S. Allen]

Everyone's got a story. Mine has, for the last 18 months, been very positive. In addition to a consistently stable and fast connection, I've even experienced suprisingly competent network support.

I'm running a linux firewall on a static IP in front of my home network. Life without @Home would totally suck.

Re:people are always more eager to share bad news

[gstovall]

Your situation sounds like mine. I've been an @Home customer for 3 years, and except for 3 bad months in 1999, things have been very good. Routinely get 3Mbps and sometimes 4-5Mbps downlink throughputs, and my family has come to be quite used to always-on, high speed internet. I think my wife would be QUITE UNHAPPY if we have to go back to dialup...she might convince me to chop down one of the beautiful trees in in our front yard so we could get a shot at a satellite.

Most of my machines are Linux, including the firewall. The only Windows machine is the kids' game machine.

Re:people are always more eager to share bad news

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been very happy with @Home too - for some 2 years. Then I moved, on March 31st. Still don't have connection via @Home. Fortunately my neighbor does though, and he knows how to set up a router as well :)

But seriously, it is rather depressing. All is fine as long as your connection is up and running - but once you need their helpdesk you're screwed. At least as long as there is no *DSL available in your neigborhood. The telco says they don't have the capacity to even support ISDN!

So I suggest you don't move - stay where you are - unless there is some broadband competition going on in your new neighborhood.

Re:people are always more eager to share bad news

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using @Home through comcast for around six months and have been very happy with them. The only time I had to call support was for the initial self install. I quickly learned don't call unless you REALLY have to. I've never had a service outage for more then 30 mins (that I've noticed) and the speed has been nice. I hope I won't have to go back to dial-up, as @Home is my only broadband choice besides sat.

Surfing on @Home behind a Packard Bell 486 running Freesco

Comcast

[XBL]

I live in Iowa. The other day a Comcase truck came to my house looking at the cable. I asked them who they were, and they said that they bought AT&T Cable Services.

I assume that Comcast also bought my @Home connection. Seems they are selling off themselves already.

Re:Comcast

[phillymjs]

Judging by their past history of acquisitions, Comcast would definitely pick up the pieces if Excite@Home goes bye-bye, and I'm willing to bet that Microsoft would step in and up the $1B stake they've had in Comcast since 1997 if the need arose in order to make this happen.

~Philly

Re:Comcast

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason Comast is in your neighborhood is that AT&T struck a deal with Cox and Comcast over their stake in @Home a year and a half ago promising to pay $48/a share for stock by no later than January 1st,2001 when January came the stock was around $10 a share so in essence AT&T owed Cox and Comcast 3.2 Billion I think. AT&T has been hurting as you know and so to make up the money many cities that were serviced by TCI now belong to Cox or Comcast.

Did you read the article?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their own auditors said that they do not have the cash flow to continue operations for much longer.

That means "Calling it quits" for those of you Windows users who can't figure it out.

Re:Why is broadband failing?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I paid $100/month for broadband, I would want to have at least 4MB downstream and 2MB upstream. Also I would like to be able to run any server I want without violating the TOS.

No need to worry...

[Stultsinator]

Now that that rogue corporation has had a taste of what happens to those that try to compete with us, they will once again join the Great Collective.

Mine Truly,
AOL/Time Warner/Everything Else

Comcast Buy Out

[SilentChris]

Ouch. I get my service through Comcast@Home, which continues to advertise @Home service even with their financial troubles.

My question, though: why doesn't Comcast buyout @Home? They have more than enough money to do so, and @Home provides a service to Comcast that keeps me with the company.

Franchises Concerned?

[mlafranc]

This probably goes a long way to explaining why my ISP, Shaw@Home is beta testing yourname@shawcable.ca, and seperate web services.

I suspect that they are posturing to bail out.

I just had to mirror this: http://members.home.net/mlafranc/dancemonkeyboy.mp eg

PS, I'm aware of the irony

Re:Franchises Concerned?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shaw is the only ISP that actually has been working to replace @Home altogether. They have servers and everything ready to go and actually have customers already transferred to their systems. Rogers customers will most likely use Shaw servers and provisioning when @Home goes away

hang-ups

[_anomaly_]

heh
I got an @home tech support person to hang up on me once... I wasn't trying to, and it really pissed me off, but it happened.
All I did was try to tell him that if he couldn't ping the @home network ip on my *external* cable modem, changing the computer it's attached to (via rj45) wouldn't make a bit of difference.
There definately has to be better selection criteria for people working tech support for @home... even though it looks like it'll be too late anyway.
I used to have DSL till I moved... I never would've tried cable if it weren't my only option for bandwidth > dialup.

Re:hang-ups

[Cramer]

If you knew what really goes on inside an ISP, you'd be amazed that anything ever works. Hiring idiots who cannot drive a mouse and firing all the "expensive" people who really know their shit only makes things that much more difficult.

(I've watched this sort of shit for almost a decade now.)

Re:hang-ups

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, these modems do not respond to pings unless there is a properly configured computer attached via RJ45. Maybe that's why they hung up on you; users who think they are smart but in actuality don't have a clue are almost intolerable to anyone without the utmost patience.

Imbecile

[Hormonal]

The next time you call someone an imbecile, please make sure you can spell it correctly. As a linux user, you should be able to use gdict or something in about two seconds. That spelling made my teeth curl.

I do agree, however, that the speed for the price is really nice, and I'm somewhat worried about what I'm going to do if they do go under. Here in Grand Rapids, there aren't many other alternatives (although I do hear that Ameritech is beginning DSL...)

Re:Imbecile

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn padantick grammar nazis.

Re:Imbecile

[ILoveMandrake]

Sorry, in the future I will do that

CRTC

[nilstar]

The CRTC has *not* mandated regluation of pricing in broadband. But, if it turns out that cable internet is dead (fat chance!)... and dsl is the only high speed net service... then they are pretty much mandated to regulate the industry of a monopoply.

NAT

[dmaxwell]

They're probably bluffing if they say they can detect NAT. I "DROP" packets and reject much ICMP functionality. A simple portscan on this box is a ten minute exercise in frustration. As a bonus nmap thought it was CISCO router (it isn't). I suppose they could get really cute and watch things like browser id strings but even those are spoofed to get around "problem" websites.

Just how are they going to find out anything about black hole looking boxes like mine?

Re:NAT

[Anonymous Coward]

if it doesn't look like a windoze box, they'll
just assume you're doing something they consider
a violation of their AUP and shut you off.

Re:NAT

[LinuxGeek8]

Did you know they can detect it?

Afaik a single computer opens client connections on ports 1024 to 32000, while a connection over a nat table opens on ports 32000 to 65000.

I heard it somewhere, so I'm not sure if it's true.
And they should be really wanting to waste some time, if they take the effort to use a sniffer on your connections, just to detect if you run Nat.

score -1 (no shit)

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said.

Not Lamenting Capitalism.

[BigBlockMopar]

Welcome to the real world. See that? I'm crying. Oh, woe is you. That's called capitalism. That's the "old economy" for you.

Very, very true. And, based on the karma hits I've taken for espousing a Libertarian philosophy, I do want you to understand that I'm not down about that.

The problem is that tech seems to be a bad word now, especially to headhunters. I don't have 14 university degrees; what I have is a practical hands-on ability, honed by 17 years of computer experience, to make systems work in real-world environments.

Have you been to a headhunter lately? It pains me when they're asking for MCSEs. *MCSEs*. I used to have MCSEs under me; they'd ask me questions like why they have to type an IP address to point to a domain name server, or how to prevent HIMEM.SYS loading when the machine starts up. (I've ranted about this on Slashdot before.) It's a paper qualification, not indicative of any real insight into how a Windows machine works. Nor do I even wish to be trapped in the Windows prison. Yet, headhunters seem to want it. [sigh]

Who the hell came up with this "new economy" slogan anyways? Exactly what is so "new" about it? Nothing, other than the fact that a bunch of young, naive idiots managed to convince some old money that their ideas were "foolproof" as in "you fools can't tell we've got no idea what the hell we're doing."

Engineering saying: Make something foolproof, and someone comes along and builds a better fool.

But here you are whining about your misfortune. Are you mad you were suckered in too? Are you bitter because you feel it was "owed" to you? Do you think you have it hard? You're probably an intelligent person and you can probably actually perform your job duties.

I like to think I'm intelligent. Actually, I did write the Mensa test, and I passed it. Even went to a couple of Mensa meetings, but got bored with hanging around with people who had nothing better to do than attempt to demonstrate to each other how intelligent they are.

No, I didn't get suckered in by the new economy. The problems were evident all the way along. For the most part, it's failing e-tailers that seem to have dragged everything else down. Well, using a mail-order analogy, why would you buy a bag of kitty litter by mail-order when there's a pet store right down the street?

E-tailing, of course, has its merits. Mail order (which is all that e-tailing really is) cannot be beaten as a way of buying specialized items. Antique car parts. Strange transistor types. Even that needlepoint pattern that my best friend's girlfriend has been looking all over for.

In the frucus before the bubble burst, it seemed that people had lost sight of common sense, and we've all been dragged down because of it. I lament *that*, not capitalism.

That alone puts you ahead of most of the other lobos (think lobotomy) "looking" for a job (more accurately, looking for a new job that's exactly like their old job).

Well, I'm not looking for something exactly like my old job, no. I'd prefer something where my combination of electronics, computers and technical writing experience can work together to save/make my new employer money. But, at this point, I have a friend who is a tow truck driver, and I've been moonlighting doing that and a few other things to pay the bills.

Maybe try and industry that isn't part of the "new economy."

Certainly have. There's no aversion for me to work for a bricks-and-mortar company. I've never worked for a start-up. I've always worked for established companies. That's not to say that I wouldn't love the excitement and pace of a new venture - I would. All the run-off from failed dot-coms are swamping every other sector, and that makes it pretty hard for your signal to rise above the noise and reach the ear of a potential employer.

One of the reasons I've been posting to Slashdot a *lot* lately is to get myself heard by like-minded people who might even be in hiring positions. So far, it's worked reasonably well, I've been getting hundreds of hits a day to my website, and many of those hits check out my resume.

Try civil service. Perhaps the police, fire department, military, IRS, FBI, etc. They're not going away any time soon.

I live in Toronto, and I've already done that.

I'm an able-bodied white, anglo-saxon protestant male. WASP. With employment equity in full force across all levels of Canadian government, I submitted my resume, clicked off the boxes asking me my ethnicity and stuff, and received a couple of e-mails back telling me that I didn't reflect the demographics they desired.

If you can't find a job locally, it's time to move. "Oh, I can't move, I love it here." You'll love it too, when you can't pay your rent and you're out on the street.

At this point, gladly. Gladly. I live in Toronto, the heart of all of Canada's commerical and industrial activity. Toronto is Canada's equivalent to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit all rolled into one. And it's still pretty dead here. Ottawa is the other option, and it's very similar to Silicon Valley; it's even got the nickname, "Silicon Valley North". With Mitel, Corel, Nortel and innumerable failed start-ups, it's hurting even more than Toronto. So, unless an employer were to see my resume and decide that they wished to sponsor me for immigration into the United States, those are my options, and Toronto is decidedly better than Ottawa at the moment.

Take charge of your life.

Of course. I'm motivated almost to the point of obsessiveness about reaching goals.

It's hard to stay optimistic and upbeat when you set a goal of finding a job by the end of the week, and again it doesn't happen.

I've stood at Bay and King (Toronto's equivalent to Wall Street) in my best suit, holding up a sign that says "Computer Geek For Hire.... Will Work For Bandwidth". Because of the humorous and practical approach, I got a lot of attention - even so far as a couple of TV interviews. Got to pass out lots of resumes and follow up with lots of people who gave me business cards.

And from all that, *one* interview. One. I present myself well, and I'm friendly and professional. Needless to say, I didn't get that job. (They were looking for an Assembly language programmer. I haven't written in Assembly in over ten years now.)

Even though I remind myself that it's a numbers game, the truth is that when someone quits a job in the IT department at a bank or something, generally, they don't seem to re-hire.

Computer geeks seem to have become about as desireable as 8-tracks.

You took a chance at (fame and) fortune and you lost. If you don't want to lose, don't play the game.

Don't have much choice, do I? Again, I'm not lamenting capitalism. I'm lamenting the idiocy of those who built the tech bubble up so much that when it burst, it affected companies and people with sound business ideas and skills.

You'll never get rich when you're unemployed.

Tell me about it.

Re:Not Lamenting Capitalism.

[Lemmy Caution]

Ironic that you now face being shunted into Microsoft environments - or out of technology -by the free market that your philosophy extolls as the engine of excellence.

Both laissez-faire capitalism and communism rely on the existence of humans that don't exist yet: the former on perfectly rational, completely informed agents, the latter on completely fair, totally socialized comrades. The failures of each system are based on the fact that humans are not that easy to reinvent.

Re:Not Lamenting Capitalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Great point. As long as people are looking for useless pieces of paper rather than experience, the tech industries are going to be in a slump for quite a while.

Unfortunately, it is pretty scary for those of us at the University level who are about to graduate with degrees related to the computer field. There are plenty of people who, while they seem to get good grades, don't really enjoy working with computers at all, and don't know ANYTHING besides how to program in Java (yes, it is possible to get a CS degree from my University without knowing very much C at all, or anything else besides Java for that matter).

The reason they joined the major was because they thought they were going to be able to instantly get rich off of all the stock options that would be thrown at them. And some of them actually did (on paper at least) if they were lucky enough to graduate before the bubble burst. I could tell you all about the number of people who quit my school to go "work" for MP3.com and other .coms that never made any money at all. Unless those that were in a company lucky enough to go IPO, and were smart enough to sell out before it was too late, now all these people are more than likely SOL.

It is scary when I talk to someone with a higher GPA than be about UNIX administration, or about Perl, or even about some of the simple operations in Win2k, or about anything besides Java, they will be 100% totally clueless. Yet these people will probably get a job easier than I can in the current market place.

I honeslty do not have any clue how they are able to do so well in classes. I guess it is true that some people are good test takers, or that people just forget everything they learn in a class the moment after the final exam.

My GPA isn't bad mind you, I'm just not at the top, and in the current job market, it seems like they only want to hire the people who look best on paper. I'm not a super guru in many areas, though I'm working on learning more skills outside of school that are useful in real world applications. Honestly, I've learned more useful things, and more languages and skills, outside of class than inside of it. I'd love to be able to have a job where I was able to be under (and leaarn from ) a veteran programmer who has been around for a while. I'd rather have that at a lesser pay than be under the direction of some clueless marketing exec who wants me to make the company web page "cool" so that they can get more investors.

I've been thinking about blowing some of my saved up cash and going for the Microsoft Certification.
I know that I'll pretty much paying for a stupid piece of paper, and I really don't like the idea of "selling out" like that... but if that is what it takes to get a job nowadays, then I might go ahead and do it.

I'm not interested in making millions by the time I'm 30. According to a lot of what I've read, many .com idiots who got rich too quick on paper are now being kept busy trying to hide their SUVs from the repo man.

I just want to be able to make a comfortable living doing what I enjoy. I don't really care about getting a Z3 as a signing bonus. (Some companies were doing this a couple years ago, to my understanding).

Oh well. Maybe the job markets will start to look better by the time I graduate. Who can tell what can happen in today's wacky market?

Re:Not Lamenting Capitalism.

[SEE]

Actually, there's a whole school of laissez-faire economists that assume that people are not completely rational and are not completely informed. They then demonstrate how the same conditions apply to anyone trying to intervene in the economy, and how the ill-informed and irrational acts of intervention by government do more and longer-lasting damage than the collective irrational and ill-informed acts of economics by private interests.

BTW, anybody remember why IBM could not by exclusive rights to PC DOS from Microsoft in the first place? A government-imposed consent decree during the long DoJ prosecution of IBM.

Getting competent support takes persistence

[jake-in-a-box]

I've had @home through Comcast for about 18 months. For the first 3 months whenever I'd call them they would tell me that they didn't offer service in my area. Sometimes they would hang up at that point, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes I wished they would. Their biggest problem was a lack of internal communications and access to internal information. Often good people were hamstrung because there was no way for them to get the info they needed to help me.

My son worked for 3 months to get them to admit that they were'nt going to help him. He wanted to host a game for two or three other people, forget what it was (I'm not much of a gamer) maybe Comand & Conquer or Warcraft II?

We just accept what we get, don't try to push the envelope. Uptime is good to excellent. download speeds consistently 1.5-2.7Mbps (that's bits, not bytes).

I also use an LRP router/firewall.

Government Control...

[slykens]

I am the last person that would want to sit here and advocate more government control of something, however, in this instance I think it may be what is needed.

Follow me on this. The cable plant is a unique resource, and can be compared to a highway system. In this analogy make a cable company or cable ISP a bus company. Each bus company has equal right to use the road and if you want to use a bus company you can choose any one you desire.

Now let's look at this analogy with the advent of hybrid-fiber-coax cable plants. If the franchise authority (ie your local goverment) owned the cable plant any number of cable providers could use the same fiber plant to distribute their service, thus lowering the barrier to entry costs and encouraging more competition amongst providers. The franchise authority could charge (example...) $5 per customer to cable providers and $2 per customer to cable ISPs to cover their costs of maintaining and upgrading the plant. All that would need done is the placement of smart mux/demux equipment in each neighborhood node that would be able to be told what connection comes from what house, what TV service to send to it and what cable modem service to send to it. (ie Channels 1-110 for TV, 111-120 for cable modems, and 121-125 for cable telephones if you wanted to add CLEC telephone service)

In this instance we would end up with governemnt control over the monopoly resource that would result in lower cost of entry to market and *could* increase competition amongst service providers. Another advantage of this is that large companies/universities could build their own private cable data networks just as though they were an ISP.

Spyware was the sign

[Ilgaz]

I liked Webshots as a windows user and continueusly using it.

Than a day came, I crashed it too bad and had to re-install...

Know what? The software which I used was "grown". Well, I tought they should have enhanced it... Than at Installation Screen, this question has been asked (and, as usual, clicked by default"

"Install Gator and new .NET software with it?"

I canceled installation directly.

For me, as a foreigner, it was an absolute shock. I mean, for a large company to add such known spyware to their "flagship" download. I feedbacked them too, via my own mail etc. calling them "morons".

Now I just start to understand what happens.

Re:Spyware was the sign

[Anonymous Coward]

"Install Gator and new .NET software with it?"

This was the same prompt I got while installing Anarchy Online.

Re:Does excite@Home == AT&T, COX, whoever @Hom

[Anonymous Coward]

YES! at&t, cox, whoever is your local cable service company has done deals with excite@home to bring you htat service. if excite@home dies, well... i'll have to battle Qwest for DSL.. :(

buildmeasite.com!

Slow down... welcome to the New New New Economy

[disc-chord]

I work for a small New England SDSL provider, with COs in all 13 New England States and partnerships that extend our reach into most of the lower 48. The only way we're staying afloat (and just barely) is by NOT going with companies claiming to do new and zany things.

How is it that major projects such as Vitts, Covad, etc. are going down when they had such increadible backing from obscenely rich VCs... while us small timers are staying in business? Because we don't do new and zany things. Most of the major players were actually giving away $300-500 SDSL modems... and expecting to make their money back down the road from reoccuring service charges. This sounds like a wonderful deal to the consumer, but when your SDSL provider can't even last long enough to make back the loss COs get shut down there is no one to save you.

Take New Hampshire and Maine for instance. Both have growing technology markets with companies eager to get into the 21st century. Unless those companies are in 3 or 4 major cities they are shit out of luck, because Vitts went down and took all it's COs with it! Verizon can't even service the majority of New Hampshier and Maine. So lots of people went with the new and zany company offering free hardware... and now that new and zany company has left them and they are running dial-up. Can you imagine the torment of having a 50-100 employee location sharing dial-up connections! Forget local hosting, forget reliable email, and kiss any new technology good-bye... your ass is stuck in the 20th century.

I'm not ragging on your idea, I think it's viable... but the people (and money) attracted to these ideas are usually not business savy.

It's been 4 months since Vitts went down, and there are still thousands of businesses noone can help... and in 4 months from now there will no doubt be hundreds of thousands with Rythums and Covad tanking... so there is definetly a market for a new infrastructure... but paying for it and keeping in business are 2 considerable hurdles.

Serves them right.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard a single good thing about them here or anywhere else...

Burn, baby, BURN!!!!

Port 80, Playboy, Karma?

[ManDude]

I find it interesting that a few weeks after closing port 80 and not offering some usenet (playboy mostly) they go to the can. Oh, and the untold stories of tech hell.

Is this packet karma at work? Have the internet gods struck down the powers of evil? Should we expect more miracles of divine intervention?

Not So Easy As you Make It Sound

[jake-in-a-box]

My cousin is a financial analyst at Excite. When I visited her in Redwood City in June, she said they would love to get rid of it, but it they can't give it away, might even have to pay someone to take it. There must be some shutdown costs or it would have been gone long ago. She laughs when she talks about how much @home paid to become excite@home, something like $7.1 Billion (yes, that's thousand million). Worth less than nothing. How's that for making a small fortune?

F*cking idiots at @Home

[frankie]

As an @Home customer, it pisses me off that they took a solid infrastructure business and wrecked it because they wanted to be Yahoo. Broadband over cable TV lines -- simple, powerful, doable. By now they should be rich enough to found a quasi-nation and buy an aircraft carrier. Or whatever they would want to do with $10^10.

But no, instead they got feverish with dotcom mania. They really thought that megabit internet access was just a stepping stone to the real money -- banner ad revenue on their web portal. I'm not making this up, honest! That's why they spent $780 million on BlueMountain, a loss-leader greeting card site, among other dot-bombs.

So now they're low on cash and their backbone needs maintenance (duh). If they shut off cable modem service I'll have to smack someone. I'd rather commute to my office than use phone modem again.

Re:F*cking idiots at @Home

[Anonymous Coward]

You can thank Excite.com management for the brains behind that bluemountain acquisition. Don't worry AT&T will maintain the backbone(Poorly)

This is the most offensive post I've read here.

[disc-chord]

But here you are whining about your misfortune. Are you mad you were suckered in too? Are you bitter because you feel it was "owed" to you? Do you think you have it hard?

Not everyone in this mess was fool hearty "new economy entrepreneur" ... Many of us were just working for them because they were paying the bills and they appreciated geek talent more than any brick and mortar ever had. Seriously, have you ever worked at a brick and mortar? 9 times out of a 10 IT is synonymous with asshole, and that's exactly how you're treated.

Find yourself a "decent" job (you know, those kind that pay real money, not future riches). Try civil service. Perhaps the police, fire department, military, IRS, FBI, etc. They're not going away any time soon.

I'm confident you are not in America's work force at this time, as you would know how absurd this comment is. And again... everyone wasn't after future riches, you watch too much ZDTV.

If you can't find a job locally, it's time to move.

After being unemployed for months on end... it's impossible to afford to move. Again... I think this is an indication that you are are not a member of the working class.

It's really bad out there, and your comments here aren't helping anyone.

Re:This is the most offensive post I've read here.

[Andrewkov]

Seriously, have you ever worked at a brick and mortar? 9 times out of a 10 IT is synonymous with asshole, and that's exactly how you're treated

This is so true. At my present employer IT is viewed as a necessary evil. They would get rid of us all in a hearbeat if they thought they could. Forklift drivers in the warehouse get treated better than IT around here. ... Suffice to say I'm passing my resume to anyone who'll take the time to read it!! However, I too am finding that IT jobs seem to be more scarce then they have been in the last 10 years.

Re:Why is broadband failing?

[drsoran]

And I want a brand new BMW for $3000 too but it's time to wake up to reality. A T-1 is about 10 times what you say you're willing to pay for your 4MB connection. The ONLY companies that will take you up on your offer are those that will end up out of business in the next year. High speed transit is not cheap... why are you expecting something for nothing?

City of Alameda already doing this...

[Akardam]

In the city I live in, at least, this is VERY close to becoming a reality.

Alameda Power & Telecom has been wiring the island with fiber optic cabling for cable & internet services for the last couple of years. From the look of things, they're rapidly completeing this project. See http://electricity.ci.alameda.ca.us/telecom/index. html for more info.

FUCK @HOME FUCKSTICK DUMBFUCKS!

[ScumBiker]

Dammnit! I just switched from DSL a few months ago! Those assholes at @link network went tits up, remember? GRRRRRRRRRRR Now I get to spend ANOTHER $500 setup for DSL? wonderful.

Re:FUCK @HOME FUCKSTICK DUMBFUCKS!

[epyx]

Why in the world did you switch from a DSL connection to a cable? Their shared infrastructure makes them almost as slow as a dial-up under heavy usage.

Too bad.

[CoachS]

Shame too - that "worthless portal" is not a terrible site. I'm not surprised that it doesn't make any money but we have quite a few folks here who have it as their home page (for tracking stocks). There are undoubtedly better stock tracking sites, but as a general portal (stocks, sports, etc.) Excite.com is decent and reliable.

-Coach-

Re:Too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in '98, I had a roommate who used mailexcite.com. Her service went down for *three weeks*. Anyway, that was the last time I knew of anyone personally going to excite.com -- I haven't been there since 96 or so, and I imagine that their name recognition among newer internet users is virtually 0 (they have driven lots of traffic to iwon.com or some other lotto site they own, keeping themselves up in the rankings). The funny thing is that I know two people who work there (still, for now), and they don't even go to excite.com.

anyway, All major surveys show that excite.com has steadily declined in market share. excite.com is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. excite.com continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, excite.com is dead.

Re:Too bad.

[supabeast!]

Yes but how many of them would use it if they had to pay enough for it for Excite to make a profit on it? Probably not many. When I said worthless, I meant worthless from the standpoint of someone who sees little value in a corporate albatross.

Rogers is going it on their own anyway...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rogers got fed up with @home and announced they were getting ready to dump them and provide the service themselves to their customers. Hopefully
they will be ready before @home disapears.

Rogers has always provided me with excellent customer service and I have no complaints. No,
I don't work for them, I'm just a happy customer.

@Home may go away but not the connection

[Anonymous Coward]

The math to make Broadband work at $40-50 month is hard to make happen. There is a reason why dedicated T1 lines are $600+ a month. The equipment to support that kind of bandwidth is expensive. Now imagine the equipment necessary to support 3 million T1 lines and you get an idea of how much data @Home's network pushes. Now consider that out of the 40 bucks you pay @Home only gets about 13 dollars(The rest goes to your cable company). Where was the money supposed to come from? It was supposed to come from advertising. That's why @Home paid 7B for excite.com to make compelling content and another 1B for bluemountain arts. Unfortunately the days of profitable page hits and click throughs is dead and therefore @Home becomes the baby that got tossed out with the bathwater. If @Home doesn't make it, I believe that the individual cable companies will take over the service for their customers. If you are a Cox or Comcast Customer you should be in good shape. If you are an AT&T @Home customer you may be OK but unlikely since what was a screwed up TCI is now a screwed up AT&T. If you are an Intermedia/Marcus or other @Home user most likely you are going to be in trouble because although they have competent Head End techs they are completely dry of Provisioning and other server related issues.

Cry as you might..@Home Sucks this and @Home sucks that the average user has connection speeds over 100KB/sec (800kbits/sec) to the internet peering point(@Home clearly can't be held responsible for the speeds of other ISPs and Net servers) and that's more than twice the MAXIMUM that DSL offers at the same price point.

Unfortunately the cable modem broadband connection is a big pipe, shared by many, and abused by a selfish few. If cable modem broadband is going to work people need to treat it like a National park. In a park you do your best to leave things the way you found them so others can enjoy them but there's always some ding dong who can't overcome his need to spraypaint his name on a rock, use a park bench for firewood, or just burn the whole friggin forrest down The same thing holds true for cable modem broadband. Most people on @Home respect the AUP and realize that it's necessary to keep things going(or aren't skilled enough to violate it) Unfortunately 5% of the users suck up 95% of the broadband. They run the servers that bring non-@Home traffic into your neighborhood. These are the same servers that get hijacked for massive DoS attacks. They run nice open unsecured mail relays that people can send useless spam all over the planet. They install DHCP services screwing with @Home's DHCP servers.(btw ever have a DHCP problem with @Home? 80% chance it's a customer with a misconfigured DHCP server.) and the list goes on.

For those who didn't get the joke the first time "Open Access" is synonymous for "No we here at AOL don't want any competition" Anyone who has looked at the logistics for providiing multiple ISP access in a shared cable modem broadband environment knows that it is going to be so ugly people will no longer want cable modem service. Anyone who says differently is missing their true calling as a tobacco company lawyer.

Dude! Where have you been?

[AKAImBatman]

Got this from shockrave.com. It's been out for quite awhile...

Why broadband continues to fail

[Anonymous Coward]

That sucks! Why is broadband failing, that is a question.

There are several reasons why broadband is failing; mostly it's the inability for these companies to run profitably. The technology is rather expensive to implement, above all the high personnel resources.

The cable company sent out a pair of technicians *twice* to get my cable modem hooked up. When I switched to Telocity DSL, I was visited by technicians three separate times for a "do it yourself install".

At least here in California, deregulation has also proven to be a fine weapon with which the phone company can bloody its competitors. Unregulated data services like DSL were hit the hardest. The RBOCs (e.g., SBC/PacHell) and ILECs (e.g., Verizon), can pretty much beat up on the NorthPoints, Rhythms, and Covads of this world. It was as if someone walked up to the biggest, baddest bully in the neighborhood and said, "Here's an assault rifle. Go use it. Oh, and here's a few extra clips and rounds on the house!"

There are other reasons for failure.

Also, broadband ISPs customer service sucks and the service is still too expensive. Of course, that's a Catch-22. If it were cheaper, more people would sign up, but it's more difficult to run profitably.

There's also too much money/effort in providing content like silly portals (hoping for advertising revenue) which customers really don't give a whit about.

Something has to give: some companies have chosen slower growth by increasing prices (although still remaining unprofitable). Others have simply gone out of business.
Small companies can still survive in the realm of regulated data services (T1s, etc.), but there is no hiding from the big bad wolf concerning consumer-grade network connectivity. At the beginning, maybe you did have a choice; at the end, with deregulation and the dog-eat-dog environment of ISPs and data services, only the phone company will win.
You will end up using the phone company's ISP running on the phone company's network, and paying whatever the phone company wants you to pay.

Rogers Rollout

[Pope]

North York? OK, that makes sense.
Rogers' initial cable deployment was in Richmond Hill. For the full rollout, they basically headed south down Yonge, branching east and west as they went.
I'm downtown (was at Dupont, now College), so HSE was available down here first.

Like the other poster in London, it totally depends on where you are. That's why I restricted my comments to Toronto and not Canada. Who know what Telus is doing out there?! :)

gottcha!

[zoikes]

_I_ am glad I just rented my cable modem -- if they go under, at least I can enjoy holding an (alebit small) asset hostage...

Slashdot Smart Tags

[Anonymous Coward]

(-1, Pornographer)

Wow, I just realized something. This new Slashdot now has smart tags. See those domain names in brackets? I never put those there. You are putting words into my mouth! This is even worse than the damned Smart Tags IE6 wants to use! Slashdot!

Caveat emptor: Excite@Home

[Anonymous Coward]

Plazm writes: "C|net has a story (printer friendly version, of course) that just cropped up this morning about Excite@Home being in financial trouble. Will they befall the same fate as Covad and Loki?

Uh, probably. When your bean counters tell the SEC that there seems to be a problem, well, they're often right. Refiling the annual report saying, "Gee, I think we need help" is generally not a good thing.

Good thing I just purchased my cable modem and broadband service through @Home last week so they could go out of business the next."

Well, apparently you didn't bother to search for Excite@Home at F---edCompany.com. They keep track of how many snafus companies like Excite@Home endure.

In the past four months, Excite@Home has had three rounds of layoffs and their stock has lost about three-quarters of its value.

Headhunters (veering off-topic)

[travail_jgd]

"Have you been to a headhunter lately? It pains me when they're asking for MCSEs. [snip] It's a paper qualification, not indicative of any real insight into how a Windows machine works."

I've found that many headhunters and most Human Resources personnel have no clue about anything involving technology. HR staff usually don't understand the job requirements of the position either, so you end up with positions that should read "5-10 years experience" that are listed as requiring "5-10 years of Windows 2000 experience". They don't have the background to know that 10-15 years of computer experience is more valuable than buzzword-compliance.

Headhunters can be worse. They don't understand the terms and really don't care if you fit the qualifications, as long as you can hold the job long enough to for them to get paid. At least Human Resources seem to be looking out for their company's best interest.

I once had a headhunter ask me what the difference was between C and C++. After I told her, then she asked me how they were different from COBOL.

Being unemployed, I've had to deal with way too many of these people the past few months.

Congratulations are in order.

[BigBlockMopar]

Ironic that you now face being shunted into Microsoft environments - or out of technology -by the free market that your philosophy extolls as the engine of excellence.

Ironic and sad, yes.

Both laissez-faire capitalism and communism rely on the existence of humans that don't exist yet: the former on perfectly rational, completely informed agents, the latter on completely fair, totally socialized comrades. The failures of each system are based on the fact that humans are not that easy to reinvent.

Congratulations, you have done what few lack the ability to do: change my viewpoint.

Through your concise and relevant comment, you have managed to make me re-think a couple of points. While I'm still fundamentally a Libertarian, there has long been a need to have some sort of government intervention in the Microsoft monopoly, a rare exception to my usual philosophy of letting the free market decide.

But this does reinforce the need for a truly impartial government to oversee all facets of the running of a society; as one of the few moderates who hasn't simply posted "socialism is best" or some other similar rant, your point has reminded me that the balance does remain the best system. Certainly, in Canada, all levels of government provide substantial roadblocks to creating your own business, as an example; controls need to remain (as much as I loathe to admit it), though they should be simpler, more streamlined and efficient than those currently in place.

Re:Congratulations are in order.

[youngsd]

Before abandoning your libertarian viewpoint so easily, consider whether the government is guilty of doing anything to support Microsoft as a monopoly. Can't think of anything? Hmm... Not anything?

Steve

Re:Not Lamenting Capitalism

[doorbot.com]

Well spoken.

That's not to say that I wouldn't love the excitement and pace of a new venture - I would. All the run-off from failed dot-coms are swamping every other sector, and that makes it pretty hard for your signal to rise above the noise and reach the ear of a potential employer.

Your initial post could have been any dot-commer crying about how their future is ruined. To be honest, what scares me is that "noise" is applying for jobs well above their head (and ass, they're in the same place, right?).

My job is fine for now, my boss wouldn't fire me for the world, but at the same time, I can't believe all the HTML web-monkeys who think they should be sysadmins/programmers just because their VCR doesn't flash 12:00. If I had to compete against these morons, could I?

Your frustration appeared (to me) to be dot-com-whiner syndrome.

You do raise a valid point that I think is important to reiterate.

The run-off is polluting the geek pool. But if you're swimming in the shallow end with the rest of the lobos, just stand up. You'll be heads and shoulders above the rest.

Perhaps you might want to try another headhunter. If they're not selling your skills (despite people wanting MCSEs -- maybe you should get that cert if it will get you a job) then it's time to switch. Maybe you've done that and still no luck. If that's the case, I'd go out on my own and sell my services. Get creative. If you're not going to get the job anyway it can't hurt to go a bit overboard trying to convince a potential employer that you're the right one to hire.

I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying I can do it. But I realize it can be frustrating and it seems to me that you are one of the few the signals above the noise (run-off).

customer service

[binarybum]

Is Excite responsible for the terrible customer service that we all receive from @home or is it the cable companies that contract the service out that are at fault? When I call for customer support I get a local cable representative from Comcast.
Here's a great little test I've devised to show how unwilling comcast is to deal with their customers. This is actually happened:
my service was working fine. I disconnected my cable modem intentionallay, and then called Comcast.
Me: hello, I'm calling from "my county". My @home service has been down for several hours now. Do you have any idea what might be wrong?
Comcast Rep: Oh, I'm showing that several nodes in "my county" are down right now
Me: Nodes? wow, that sounds bad.
Comcast rep: Yes sir, but our technicians are aware of the problem and are working on it.
(NOTE: the first thing you hear when calling the comcast Support Line is a recorded list of problematic nodes; "my county" was not listed)
Me: How long will it be until my service is back up?
Comcast Rep: I have no way of contacting those technicians out in the field.
Me: your pants are on fire! (ok, I didn't actually get to say that.)

@home v. ATT@Home

[catseye_95051]

bfore you start panicking find out who your network-layer provider really is.

IUn my case its AT&T through TCI, which they bought.

Even if @Home goes under I strongly suspect AT&T will contiue to offer my cable modem and just switch toa different ISP servcies provider.

BTW a few more comments:
(1) I've had an AT&T @Hoem mdoem for a few yearsnow and generally found it highly reliable. Its porbably area dependant but in my area its MUCh more reliable then the IDSl we had efor awhile.

(2) I have some pity/sympathy for @Home. They invested TONS fo money in the infrastructure for Cable modem long before anyone knew it would be successful. Inre turn for this early invetment they acquired lock-ind eals with the various low level carriers like TCI to be the onew ISp provider on their lines.

Flash foward 3 years or so, cable mdoem is finally taking off and AOL and some other big ISPs go whining to the FCC that NOW they want in on cable modems, without having made the risky upfront investment to get it all started. The FCC caves and takes @Home's bought and paid for market advanatge away.

This was BAD call of the FCC. They really shoudl have at elast given @Home a 5 year period or so onc the amrekt cae alive to establish themselves before makign trhem open the mqrket up to agressive compettitors like AOL and MSN.

I know I'd think twice about ivnesting early in a new medium, based on what happened here.

excite = software

[AA0]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't excite just the website end of @home? I was told over a year ago (when they were losing mass amounts of money then), that they just made the webpages. A huge portion of their staff was laid off 6 months ago or so and they were all web developers (excite sucks for their websites anyways).

The @home backbone is very strong, and last I was told they weren't in much trouble. AT&T would surely bail them out if they were, they have most of @homes customers, even though as a ISP they are probably the worst of everyone on the @home network. If @home was in real trouble, they'd lease out those massive pipes they have running all around the country, might slow down your service, but it probably wouldn't. You'd be seeing large price hikes if there was trouble with the actual service... so far, I haven't seen anything.

Suprising, but not really.

[A_Non_Moose]

As an addendum to my previous post and the responses:

@home, at least in Ga, has been solid, I must
agree. However look at the trend I stated:
upload = >200K/s, capped after a year @128K/s and
now they're saying it is/was 128k/s (14K/s)...
also they do NNTP scans, which is stupid as 14k/s is not enough to run a SP^h^hmail server, or be a webmaster who deals with graphic artists makes life unlivable mail/ftp wise.

(heck part of the reason I got into linux was GA's, no matter how many times you say PC formatted disk...you get? A Mac Formatted disk.
So, could not afford a mac, installed linux with hfs driver..and viola...no worries)

So the whole point of my on topic rant of before is that customer service left a lot to be desired, customer satisfaction was going to hell in a handbasket, and techs like me who serve the
university here are not only GRIPING out loud, but not recommending cable any more!!

Top it all off: an associate I know at the @home company local to me admitted they oversold the bandwith, the nodes can't handle the traffic in all areas and nonsensical caps in place and when they do try to fix the problems, hardware causes more problems than it solves (Cisco I beleive was mentioned).

The cap was initially an insult (the K) the injury was the "oh, we meant 'k'", uh-huh.
Pretty damn close to "consumer fraud", IMHO.

But, admittadly I think killing the divx groups and MPAA bitch messages were the downward slope of the bell curve for @home.

Heh, they wound up biting the hand(s) that feed IT.

Moose.

How long before the pr0n groups bite the dust, I wonder?

Your gratuitous insults not withstanding..

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind a representative of a company, lowly tech monkey or exec, would just HANG UP on a customer without an explanation? Maybe we didn't hear both sides put forth very well from the previous poster...but your attitude stinks, young man.

Re:Your gratuitous insults not withstanding..

[ILoveMandrake]

I had BestBuy do that to me twice! I was calling to see if they had a product stocked in my local store. The solution was simple for me: Don't buy from BestBuy...

This felt so good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just emailed the person at Excite that wouldn't hire me because I hadn't worked the very latest Java api's with the message "Who's looking for work now? Neeeer neeeer neeeer!".
Good riddence. What a shack of hubris that company was.

It's the abysmal customer service

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no one should expect a line of techs to be at his/her beck and call, but then again, no one should be treated like this.

Answer: Because pets don't drive the economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Business plan? Darn, I knew there was something we forgot!

Oh well, I guess the shareholders forgot, too. (The same folks who owned Webvan, and eToys, and...). Too bad.

Sincerely,

Julia Wainwright
President/CEO, Pets.com (NASDAQ:IPET)
http://www.pets.com

Good.

[Legion303]

If this is the same Excite that runs Inside Excite at excite.com, then good fucking riddance, and I hope the Excite@Home division (I'm assuming that's what it is--the story doesn't say) drags the rest of the cocksuckers down with it.

It's no wonder most spam comes from @home relays. Inside Excite has been spamming me for months and refusing to stop. Here's part of what I sent the California Attorney General's office today:

I have asked Excite (support@excite.com, postmaster@excite.com, and
abuse@excite.com) numerous times to stop sending me unsolicited commercial
email, yet they persist. I never signed up for any of their services,
never used any of their services, and certainly never asked for any ads to
be emailed to me. In their unsolicited commercial email, there is an
option to "unsubscribe" (to a list I never subscribed to) that leads to a
web page that has never worked:
http://excite.upgrade.com/excite/NBServices.asp has returned the message
"Currently we are unable to update your preferences, please try again
later" for at least a year, and no one at Excite has responded to my
complaints.

So now one of Excite's divisons is going under? Big surprise, given their obvious lack of concern for potential customers. Bye, Excite@home. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

-Legion

The whole @home network?

[crivens]

I don't understand - is this the whole @home network, or just a small part of it?

Wonderful

[Krellan]

Wonderful! It is a good thing that these middlemen are going away.

Just give me a direct connection to the Internet, and pass IP packets between my computer and the backbone. Thank you. Don't make me go through a "value-added" middleman. I'm sure I speak for many when I say this.

With Excite@Home gone, AT&T Broadband (the cable company that actually owns the wires) should simply pass the IP packets straight through to the backbone, without foisting "exclusive content" on their users.

Pacific Bell does this with Prodigy for their "basic" connection. One of the main reasons why everyone pays extra for an "enhanced" connection is to avoid this! It would be a wonderful thing if AT&T would learn from this and just give people a direct connection, hassle-free.

tiered service

[Anonymous Coward]

its always fascinated me that there are no ISPs out there offering tiered service. if you look at the rest of the world, there arent too many service industries out there that dont have some level of tier format. commercial airlines, hotels, car rental and retail, shipping, groceries, long distance and cell phone service...why the hell dont ISPs take a look around and learn something from the people who ARE making money? the net has reached the point of making enough impact in the world to be a cant-live-without-it necesity for a huge number of people. the infrastructure built to house it is not going away any time soon. as previous posts have said, it seems to be just plain foolishness thats dragging the industry through the mud.

Duh, expenses to high

[Com2Kid]

Mabye if Excite@Home cut down on the craptacular content and piss poor 3rd party links that it has established (Oh yes, I just so desperatly want Pogo.com to say Welcome Com2Kid from @Home! Crud, same damn advertisements!!!!) then it would be able to cut costs some, eh?

Then again some idiotic morons have decided that people actualy LIKE portals. To bad that they have yet to realize that portals with nothing more then regurgitated news content are, well, heh, not portals at all but nothing more then sites with regurgitated news content. Woh, A = A, who'da thunk it?

Excite is a "portal". Remember portals?

[Animats]

Remember, Excite@Home isn't the network connectivity provider. They're a "content portal". The connectivity part lives on as AT&T/Time/Warner/TCI/etc.

Go to Excite and what do you see? "My News". "My Weather". "My Horoscope". "My Chat Events". "Change Excite Colors" (Wow, even Yahoo doesn't have that!). Will anybody miss that stuff?

@Home in other countries

[dezwart]

Does anyone know how this will affect @Home in other countries?

Re:@Home in other countries

[NightRain]

This link is to the Australian Excite@home press release on the subject. Basically, Optus@home will be buying them out, and it will be business as normal.

Nah...

[cjsnell]

Nah, @Home was pretty well fscked long before the Excite merger. I used to work there back in early 98 as a unix systems administrator. I'll sum it up for ya:

Big corporation mentality in a not-so-huge corporation.

You had to hold a meeting for EVERYTHING. I can't tell you how many three hour meetings I attended, only to leave and ask myself, "What the hell was that about?"
Goof-off employees. I should know, I was one of them. With video arcade machines (inc. a sit-down version of California Racing!!), ping pong, foosball, free cappucinos, free sodas, and cheap snacks--it was hard /not/ to goof off.

Bullshit top-down management style. Take, for example, the mail fiasco. At the time, we were running crappy Netscape Mail Server (ie post.office) which was seriously out of its league for what we were doing. At best, it could deliver two messages a second while running on a Sun Enterprise 450. So, we decided to build a new mail system. The architects made their recommendations but their fuckwad CTO ended up having most of the say in the matter. I no longer use the @home service but from what I hear, the mail system still sucks.
Two words: the slide.

You have got to be kidding!

[Anonymous Coward]

First off let me say that I love my Cable modem. I get upwards of 3Mb/sec. But $50 per service call would be a total joke.

They have been out here over a dozen times, first for losing the signal whenever the ground gets wet, and then after the lightening strike. They replaced the connector on one end of the cable, and then the other end, and boosted the power, and then Finally replaced the cable from the box to my house to fix everything. And then there were the THREE bad cable modems (they have to program them onsite for some reason). I'm glad I spent the $10 per month rental for the modem.

ALL of the problems have been their problems. Why should I pay them to maintain their lines to my house? $100 per service call to do nothing but reprogram a cable modem or splice a new connector on the cable. Give me a break. You would not expect the cable TV company to charge me to maintain the cable for the TV. Why should the cable internet company charge me to maintain the same wire. Beside, if I had Digital Cable, I would have had the same problems on my TV.

This is all a smoke screen because the @Home side of the house was PROFITABLE! It was the Excite side that caused the money problems. I don't remember Which article I read that in.

What will happen to Optus@Home?

[DrPayOut]

It's a joint venture between Optus and Excite@Home apparently.. Will Optus buy it out?

This may be cold...

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one shall shed no tears. It has been said here, and will be said again. But given the amount of hostile probes (from their users)I have logged and banned on my fire wall, I can say I will not miss them.

Re: Huh?

[dohcvtec]

(Score:2,Funny)? OK, the last sentence was humorous, but this guy's sentiments really echo most people's experiences with cable. It's usually only the dissatisfied customers that speak out (why would satisfied customers give away free endorsements) so the image remains that cable is bad. BTW, @Home service varies greatly from city to city, since service in each city is not much unlike a local ISP, even though the @Home franchise is nationwide. Things like bandwidth caps and port filtering are handled locally, and some localities are handled much more professionally than others. Actually, I think this may be the Achilles heel of @Home. It seems, admin-wise, that there is a lack of central authority, and poorly managed markets may become weak links in the @Home chain unless things are more centralized. As for DSL? Hah! My phone lines are so poor I can only connect by modem at 26,400, and this situation is not as rare as it may seem. AFAIK, DSL is really finicky about line quality, and a lot of folks do NOT have perfect phone lines, so in my case cable is the only broadband choice.

I love @home

[Anonymous Coward]

I love @home. It rarely gives me any trouble. Yes, bandwidth does fluctuate. For example, if i'm downloading an Adobe demo (from adobe), at night I might get 250-300kilobytes p/sec. And during the day, I might get 150-250. But the bottom line is that it's still a great value. Even if you getting 24kilobytes p/sec, it is still a better value than any dial-up. I use to use AOL (not by choice, it was forced upon me...shudder). AOL+Second Phoneline+Constantly on the phoneline= more expensive that @home. And broadband access is really booming. For example, back in the old days of mp3 stealing (early napster, IRC was popular), it would be incredibly rare to find a high speed fserv. And now, when you log onto a service like morpheus, there are thousands and thousand of broadband users. I've even noticed huge differances in the amount of people with amazingp ping in multiplayer games. I'd say about 1/8th of people at my high school use @home. Thats a pretty large number when you consider it. Buttom-er line: There is a huge demand for broadband, and even if it means @home is going to double it's prices, there not going to be shutting down.