Excite Could Go Dark On Friday

robvasquez writes: "According to this CNET article, excite @home could be pulling the plug on cable modem subscribers. What's your providers back up plan? Could milions of trolls and Nimda spreaders be taken off line?"

Comments

Cox

[dAzED1]

Cox@home is staying up, they're just going to be dropping the "@home" part.

Re:Cox

[Rudeboy777]

Suddenly the guy with sucker@home.com is going to consider getting a Hotmail address!

Re:Cox

[emag]

Here's the email I got. Not very full of details, but partially reassuring:


Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:52:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Cox Communications
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@home.com
Subject: Important Information Regarding Your Cox @ Home Service

Dear Cox @ Home customer:

Recently, you were informed that our high-speed Internet partner - Excite @
Home - filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. We recognize that this
situation may have caused you some concern about the future of your service.
Rest assured, we are taking all the necessary steps to provide continued reliable
high-speed Internet service to our customers ? now and in the future.

We are deeply committed to providing you with a quality high-speed Internet
service. For several months, we have been hard at work creating a new Cox-
managed network to better serve you. There are many benefits to directly
managing our own network, such as:

* Easier, more streamlined customer service experience.
* Enhanced network performance.
* Ability to bring you the latest in cutting-edge technology and product
features.

In the weeks ahead, we'll continue to keep you informed and share more details
of our exciting plans. For more information, please visit www.cox.com/moreinfo .
(Click here: http://www.cox.com/moreinfo )
We thank you for being a valued Cox customer.

Sincerely,
Cox Communications


That URL above is what some flonetwork.com gobbledygook redirected too. Funny, I can't connect....

what about us...

[djsable]

Some of us slashdot readers are going to be caught in that too you know.

It's not all "trolls and Nimda spreaders" who happen to be on @home, and could be screwed.

blah.

Re:what about us...

[camusflage]

It's not all "trolls and Nimda spreaders" who happen to be on @home, and could be screwed.

You're absolutely right! It's spammers too. They're in the top ten sources of spam on spam reported through SpamCop. This is even more impressive considering that they send anything from spamcop, whether it's an automated report or a manual email with an @spamcop.net address, to Dave Null, prompting many SpamCop users to send a manual report

While I feel bad about the legitimate customers, seeing a provider who is utterly unresponsive to spam complaints disappear down the drain after circling a while isn't exactly breaking my heart.

Re:what about us...

[camusflage]

Spamcop, at its core, is an automated spam processing system. It comes in a free and a pay flavor. Basically, you either cut and paste your spam into a form on their website, headers included, or you forward it as an attachment to your submission address. It slices and dices, looks for links, parses headers, records statistics, and sends notices to appropriate parties, be they ARIN contacts for IPs or abuse.net contacts for domains. There's all sorts of nifty stuff for making sure that your real email address doesn't end up in spammers' hands, instead creating a ReportID@spamcop.net address for each report (my most recent one is in the 4.75 million range). Still though, it's not perfect. Sometimes it's fooled by the mta chain, sometimes it does let an identifying bit of information slip through, and it DOES NOT parse reply-to addresses (grumble). Still though, it does do a pretty good job overall, and lets me send out reports about spam in a fraction of the time it would take to manually parse them.

For spamcop vs. @home, @home bounces anything with an @spamcop.net address, whether it's an automated report or whether it is someone using their @spamcop.net address (each paying member gets an email account that is spam-filtered, which can be used for everyday usage). Myself, I prefer Sneakemail for my mail management. Anyway, not only do they block spamcop reports, but they generally ignore even manual reports from non spamcop.net addresses. Just today, they started sending an auto-acknowledgement with a case ID of something like 1001 for every case (non-incrementing), indicating that they simply don't care anymore.

All in all, SpamCop, despite its problems, is an incredible service. It's open source too, with the code being available on SourceForge. You can use it for free, or pay $36/yr or $1/mb of mail for a lot of advanced features, such as the filtered email address, IMAP/POP3 access, black/whitelists, et al.

Re:what about us...

[aussersterne]

While I feel bad about the legitimate customers, seeing a provider who is utterly unresponsive to spam complaints disappear down the drain after circling a while isn't exactly breaking my heart.

Well then, you're an asshole. I live in a major metropolitan area, but DSL isn't available almost anywhere. Most of the local ISPs went down the drain years ago. I've got I don't know how many family and friends in the area and out who are using excite@home. They'll all have to go back to phone lines with a different ISP. Many of them don't even own a 56k modem.

Worse than technical issues, however -- if the service cuts off, many of them will be cut off as well from their family and friends around the globe, from their professors and schools, from their bill payment services and local banks and utilities. They will also likely lose their e-mail accounts in the middle of e-shopping-season, missing receipts, shipment notices, and other important e-commerce information, not to mention all of their e-mail if they've been using IMAP.

I'll bet there's a spammer on your network somewhere. I hope your network goes down so that I can laugh at you when you have to pony up to AOL because of some idiot spammer you had nothing to do with.

Cutting of someone's ISP without warning is like losing phone service without warning and not being able to get the same number again once phone service is resumed. It can screw your whole life up and I feel sorry for the people I know who aren't technical enough to buy and manage their own domain.

And that's most of them.

It may not be so bad.

[Roofus]

I got an email from AT&T yesterday:

Dear *************,

As you may be aware, Excite@Home, our service provider, recently filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. In order to continue providing you the quality and reliable high-speed cable Internet service that you expect, AT&T has submitted a proposal to purchase the Excite@Home network. If AT&T is able to purchase and manage the Excite@Home network, there will be no immediate change to your current service. If the network purchase is approved, we will notify you via your AT&T@Home email account as soon as possible.

As a precautionary measure, AT&T Broadband also has been building its own network and service in the event that AT&T is unable to purchase the Excite@Home network. If the proposal to purchase the Excite@Home network is not approved, your service may be temporarily interrupted and it will be necessary to move your service to a new AT&T Broadband network.

In any event, AT&T Broadband is deeply committed to providing you the best cable Internet service possible and communicating any upcoming changes. Be sure to frequently check the "Announcements and Updates" section of our Web site for the latest information about your service: http://help.broadband.att.com/

In the meantime, please check your AT&T Broadband email account(s) on a daily basis. Doing this will automatically save your email to your hard drive as well as ensure timely receipt of important future communications from AT&T Broadband. Also, if you use our Personal WebSpace feature, we recommend you backup your personal web page(s) by copying it to a diskette, CD, or to your computer hard drive.

If migrating your service to the AT&T Broadband network and service becomes necessary, we will call to notify you of the migration timing. A message will be left on your voicemail or recorder if no one is available at the time of the call. As a precaution, we are providing you the following instructions, which will enable you to connect your computer to the new AT&T Broadband network. Again, you will only need to follow these steps in the event you receive a call from AT&T Broadband instructing you to do so.

1. Restart your computer to begin the process.
2. Open your Internet browser. You should be automatically sent to an AT&T Broadband welcome page. This page includes instructions on how to download software used to change your computer settings for the new network. If the welcome page does not automatically appear when you open your browser, please go to http://newuser.attbi.com/ (This website will only be available if the service migration is necessary).
3. Follow the instructions on the Web site to run the Automated Configuration Utility (or you can choose to change your computer settings manually).
4. The software will automatically change your Outlook Express email client, your Internet Explorer settings, and configure your computer for the new AT&T Broadband network. Information on how to manually change your settings for other email clients and Internet browsers such as Netscape Communicator and Netscape Navigator can be found at http://help.broadband.att.com/
5. You can now surf the Internet and use email on the new AT&T Broadband Internet network and service.

If migrating your service to the new network is necessary, certain aspects of your service would change. Your current homepage would feature new content and your current email address domain name would change. Please note that your username would remain the same. For example, jsmith@home.com would change to jsmith@attbi.com. If service changes are necessary, a detailed description of all changes will be provided at http://help.broadband.att.com/ in the Announcements and Updates section.

Whether the Excite@Home network is purchased or your service is migrated to the new AT&T Broadband network, your Subscriber Agreement, which outlines the general Terms and Conditions of your service will change. You will be able to view the amended and restated Subscriber Agreement that will apply to the AT&T Broadband Internet service at http://help.broadband.att.com/ Your continued use of the service will constitute your acceptance of the amended and restated AT&T Broadband Internet Subscriber Agreement.

If you need assistance, visit us online at http://help.broadband.att.com/ to chat with a customer care specialist. Please remember, AT&T Broadband will call you if any action is required on your part.

While we realize these potential changes may cause some inconvenience, please be assured that we are doing everything possible to avoid any service disruptions. However, in the event the service is disrupted during a migration, you will receive a credit for those days of interrupted service.

We are working hard to provide you with the best high-speed cable Internet service possible. We appreciate your patience and your business.

Sincerely,

Susan K. Marshall
Senior Vice President
Advanced Broadband Services

Re:It may not be so bad.

[Robotech_Master]

I just talked to an AT&T@Home support rep via their Java web chat app.

You say: Will my service through AT&T be affected if Excite discontinues its service Friday?

After a bit of prevaricating...

In-Max Marcus says: While we cannot be certain of the court's final decision, AT&T Broadband has always encouraged its customers to periodically save their browser bookmarks, personal Web page files, address book, and e-mail files to their desktop, disk or CD. These steps are commonly practiced for increased safety against unforeseen events such as computer crashes, network outages and virus infections.

I was able to get the guy to come through with an answer:

You say: I need the answer to this question: If Excite can't reach an agreement, and discontinues its service Friday, will my Internet access also be discontinued. I'd like a solid answer, please.

In-Max Marcus says: No.your services will not be affected at all and we wil reprovisoin all the settings needed.

So there you have it. My own cable service seems to be well in hand.

@Home trying to keep subs until last packet....

[Arethan]

I'm hearing rumors that @Home is delibrately causing issues with customer account conversions at various cable offices. My fiance is a CSR, and she's been talking about how @Home's sytems are no longer removing modem records from the headends, and the regional General Manager is contantly on the phone bitching at them to fix it (and fast). Apparently every time they try to convert a customer, they issue the account close operation, and it returns successfully, but the customer's modem stays online. When they add the local record for the subscriber, their UBR is given the appropriate information and will accept the modems, but the customer has a 50/50 chance of the @Home UBR responding before theirs. Effectively keeping most customers on @Home's network.

You'd think that they were just having issues with their UBR, or maybe with their access to @Home's subscriber management system, but they are able to successfully add new customers to their own service just fine, and everything was going smoothly with conversions until just a week ago.

Could be @Home being a prick until the very last minute, could be a coincedence. I'm not apt to support one theory or the other, I'm just relaying what I hear.

Moderation: -1 Heresay! (lmao)

Re:@Home trying to keep subs until last packet....

[hyrdra]

I'm a network engineer for a cable provider in Columbus, Ohio. What we do is contract backbone service out to bandwidth companies in the area. When we switch networks what we do is issue a DHCP update to all of our nodes, and turn the DHCP server off before it has time to respond with a new IP address on the old network. We then send a TFTP configuration to the modem to turn the network control access object off, switch the HFC IP address, turn it back on, and by this time the DHCP server on the new network responds with the new IP address.

The process is completly transparent and the only hit is to programs which keep a constant port open (e.g. file sharing programs), will suddenly loose a connection for receiving (sinc they have a new IP). However, they usually time out and reconnect.

It also has the added advantage of flushing out priate modems on the network, since customers who use a modem with it's TFTP disabled or it's control locked to on don't receive the new info for the new network and are stuck on an old, dead network.

We have switched networks over four times with only a few support calls. It could have been a big deal, requiring customer talk-throughs but we do it transparently.

For those with Adelphia PowerLink@Home...

[antdude]

Please read this thread on DSL Reports. It includes important information, schedule, etc. :)

don't let the screen door ...

[chip rosenthal]

It will be a huge relief in my spam load when @Home goes dark. My most recent attempt to report a spammer with a business-class account was bounced:

Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 22:52:21 -0800
To: Chip Rosenthal <chip@unicom.com>
Subject: Fwd: Newsletter Provided by The Black World Today [Evaluation - see full header]
From: AUP Enforcement Team <abuse@home.net>
Reply-To: AUP Enforcement Team <abuse@home.net>

Dear Chip Rosenthal,

Your message, including your pasted-in email message body, firewall log,
or newsgroup header, exceeded the maximum message size allowed by our
mail service. Please reduce the size of your email message and exclude
any excessive message body or MIME/UNICODE text.

For firewall users, usually one line detailing a system probe attempt
from an @Home user is sufficient for us to take action on the event.
Multiple lines detailing more than one event from the same user are not
necessary.

Thank you,

The @Home Network Policy Management Team

The message they refused was a whopping 50K.

Oh, and of course they fail to return the original report so that you can revise and resubmit it. That's a favorite trick of spam-friendly ISPs.

Pity @Home flushed all that money on the Excite portal. Otherwise, maybe they could afford another disk shelf for their mail server.

Millions of trolls and Nimda spreaders...

[Manaz]

Could milions of trolls and Nimda spreaders be taken off line?

What, AOL are being closed down too? :)

Re:A good motivator

[camusflage]

The ensuing clamor might be enough to motivate the gubment to monopolize Internet provision and bring it to everyone for a reasonable fee.

This is wrong on so many levels it's difficult to even begin. First of all, the government is the last entity I think of when I consider responsive, efficient organizations. I don't know about you, but I like both of those qualities in my internet connection.

This is ignoring the fact that Carnivore would go by the wayside. Who needs Carnivore when you just own the whole thing?

We see what happens in other countries when the government runs the internet. Why, just this week, we've had 17k internet cafes shut down in China and Saudi Arabia looking to build an even bigger firewall.

You thought that the interstate highway system was yours because of gasoline taxes? In times of war the DOT has the authority to take over whatever roads the military needs to move troops/supplies. I don't know about you, but I don't relish the idea of getting kicked off the net for any reason, let alone some religious nutjob.

Re:Put the government in charge

[CaseyB]

There's a rather large difference between keeping welded pipes full of water and keeping computers running.

Yeah, water's a lot harder to manage, and the stakes are higher when it fails. When's the last time people died because their internet connection wasn't properly maintained?

Internet would be a breeze compared to water and power.

Comcast Users: You shouldn't have a problem.

[thesolo]

I talked to a few people at Comcast back when Excite was having trouble earlier this year, and they hinted at the fact that there wouldn't be a problem if Excite went under.

Later, when I called to complain about the newly-imposed bandwidth caps, they hinted at the fact that they would be offering different service plans in the near future, and mentioned Excite's financial troubles numerous times.

Also, if you notice they have had their own portal (www.icomcast.net) up and running for some time now.

Lastly, they just upped their cable modem service rates--from what I'm told by people at Comcast again, its to cover new operating expenses (read: no more Excite).

So, with any luck, Comcast users shouldn't experience many, if any, problems with service. All signs are pointing to them keeping service afloat.