Sprint ION's $100/mo, 8Mbps Home Service Tanks

Dr. Zowie writes: "In the current gloomy high speed connection market, a ray of light was Sprint's ION service. For $100/month, they would provide local phone service, long distance service, and 8mbps down, 1mbps up DSL-like digital connection. I've been waiting for the service to turn on to write a review about it -- but the service has been discontinued and all orders are being cancelled. Too bad -- ION was like a geek dream come true." ION was only available to a relative handful of people, but it sure sounded good. Anyone have suggestions for this sort of combination service?

Comments

It will be missed.

[kurtras]

I don't want this to sound like an obituary, but ION really was a great idea. Though it never came to my area, it was just like some of the other FTTH services that we saw earlier in the 90's - voice, data, and eventually video all on one line, through one provider. Admittedly, ION had issues, but overall, the service was good, with plenty of bandwidth, and you got everything from one provider. Plus, as I recall, their TOS/AUP was not as bad as most DSL providers - that is, you could run servers, and add routers/home networks.

In short, it was spectacular service with high prices and low demand. So, it died. Oh well.

Wonder why it tanked?

[d.valued]

Nice play with semantics.

Now, seriously.. Not many people really need this 'service'. Sure, it's nice to have less-than-zero ping times for Q3A (or whatever massively multiplayer game thou hast the time to waste playing), or for *loading kernels, but outisde Silicon Valley in the more 'traditional business' areas, not too many people would really need it.
The worst part is that those bandwidth would have to be peak bandwidths, as that much pipe costs an awful lot of money. (Have you priced T3's and OC's lately?)

The dot-bomb implosion, the fall of Nasdaq, the recessionary economy, and the 11-9 aftermath killed 'em. People with the money to spend started to cut their personal costs, and this sort of service went poof.

I believe that the only way to get reliable fat pipe for the forseeable future is from the established telcos, and it's going to be a little more expensive.