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@Home Network Approaching Shutdown

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-code-red dept.

David Harris writes: "A bankruptcy court ruled today that the @Home network will be shutdown at midnight, unless the company reaches new deals with its cable partners and creditors. The decision is a victory for bondholders, owed $750 million by Excite@Home, whose motion asked the court to shutdown the network on grounds that AT&T's $307 million offer to acquire @Home's broadband network is not adequate and fair value for the network could only be found if a shutdown was forced." Read about it on excite.com, while you can. CNet has a good analysis of where things stand. 45% of the cable modem users in North America! Ouch.

45 of 797 comments (clear)

  1. First Post by Sunken+Kursk · · Score: 5, Funny

    And probably last post since I'm an @home subscriber. My e-mail is already toast!

    --

    When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

    1. Re:First Post by Raven42rac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My latest Email:

      Dear Cox @ Home Customer:

      As you know from our previous emails, Excite @ Home, our vendor in delivering
      your Cox @ Home service, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection at the end
      of September. We have endeavored to keep you informed of the potential impact
      this Bankruptcy could have on your Cox @ Home service and are writing to you
      today to provide the latest information we have available.

      First, we want you to know that we are committed to providing you uninterrupted
      high speed Internet service. Cox Communications has been working diligently in
      negotiations with Excite @ Home and using all legal avenues available to protect
      you, our valued customer. Meanwhile, we have been forging ahead with our
      plans to deliver reliable high speed Internet service to you on our Cox-managed
      network. You will soon be receiving additional information about our new Cox
      High Speed Internet(sm) service, along with information to help you convert to this
      new service.

      The latest developments with Excite @ Home:

      This month, Excite @ Home's creditors petitioned the Bankruptcy court with a
      motion to allow Excite @ Home to terminate service agreements with its cable
      affiliates on November 30th. This includes agreements with Cox, Comcast and
      AT&T. If the Court grants the creditors' request, there conceivably could be a
      temporary disruption in the services that Excite @ Home provides to
      approximately 3.7 million customers served by its North American cable affiliates.
      We are doing everything possible to see that there will not be a disruption in your
      service, but also want you to understand the possibilities and to be prepared:

      *If the Judge's ruling states that Excite @ Home may terminate its service
      agreements with Cox and the other cable affiliates, this does not mean that
      Excite @ Home will automatically turn off the service on November 30th.
      *With the Judge's approval, Excite @ Home would then have the ability to make
      a decision on termination; however, we are negotiating with them to prevent any
      service disruption.
      *If Excite @ Home decides to terminate service despite our efforts to negotiate a
      temporary arrangement, the question remains as to when the service would be
      terminated. We are doing everything we can to ensure that your Cox @ Home
      service continues until we can transition you to our new Cox-managed Internet
      service. In short, we are doing our best to make sure that you will never be
      without high speed Internet service.

      Additional help Cox is providing:

      In addition to exercising legal avenues, negotiating with Excite @ Home, and
      building our own high speed Internet service, Cox is also offering the following to
      help you and to keep you informed during this transitional period:

      Toll Free Customer Information Line (1-877-832-4751). You can call in for
      the latest updates as we work to quickly resolve any service issues.
      Website Message Center at Cox.com/info
      http://uuhttp.flonetwork.com/cgi-bin3/flo?y=eJIF 0C 8sRW0B460ork0AF
      We will provide online updates and a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) section to
      address your concerns.
      Automatic Account Credits. We will credit your account automatically for
      service and leased equipment so that you are reimbursed for any time you
      are without service.
      Free, temporary dial-up Internet access. In the unlikely event that you
      should experience a service disruption, we have arranged for temporary
      dial-up access to the Internet via NetZero(R). In order to take advantage of
      this precautionary option, please see the "What Should I be Doing Right
      Now" section that follows.

      Cox has a long history of outstanding service in your community. We pride
      ourselves on providing high quality products and the best customer service.
      Please know that we are committed to our customers and understand the
      extent to which you enjoy the services we provide. We recognize that you
      have a choice in service providers and we will continue to do our best to
      remain your choice now and in the future. In advance, we apologize for any
      inconvenience that the Bankruptcy of our vendor Excite @ Home may cause
      you.

      Stay tuned for more details, and thank you for choosing Cox.

      Sincerely,

      The Cox High-Speed Internet Team
      Cox Communications, Inc.

      _______________________________

      What Should I be Doing Right Now?
      1. Check your Cox @ Home email daily. Opened messages will be saved
      automatically to your hard drive.
      2. Download free dial-up Internet software. In the unlikely event that Excite
      @ Home terminates your service, you would lose connectivity to the Internet and
      access to your Cox @ Home services such as email and webspace. We do not
      recommend that you install the software at this time, just download the software
      and save it so that it may be installed should you have an interruption in service.
      In order to restore access to the Internet and to set up a temporary email
      address, we recommend that you register for dial-up service via NetZero and
      download the necessary software. You will not be able to download the software
      from your home after your Internet service has already been disrupted. While a
      free dial-up connection is not ideal, it will give you temporary access to the
      Internet for surfing, making transactions, etc. However, you will not be able to
      access your Cox @ Home email accounts while the service is shut down. For
      information on how to download this software, please visit Cox.com/info
      http://uuhttp.flonetwork.com/cgi-bin3/flo?y=eJIF 0C 8sRW0B460ork0AF
      3. Back up your personal web page to your hard drive or to a CD. (This is a
      good precautionary measure to follow at any time.)
      4. In the unlikely event that there is a disruption in service, keep your cable
      modem connected to your PC until service is restored.
      5. Watch for more information from Cox on the transition of your service to
      Cox High Speed Internet. At such time that you can make the transition to our
      new service, Cox will be providing you with all of the information you need to make
      your transition as smooth as possible.

      I'm digging out my external modem as we speak. I hope they figure this out, because I do not know what I will do without my cable modem and /.

      Mo Bandwidth. Mo Problems.

      --
      I hate sigs.
  2. Nooooo! by }InFuZeD{ · · Score: 4, Troll

    I won't be able to read Slashdot tommorow!

    *goes and collapses on the floor*

  3. Shutting down bad move for both sides? by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 4, Redundant

    Wouldn't shutting down the service be a bad move for both sides? The bond holders would be left with what could be scavenged out of a sale of the company while the cable companies are left with a lot of unhappy customers. I think at minimum a short term deal will be struck so that they can continue to negotiate.

    1. Re:Shutting down bad move for both sides? by lizrd · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's extortion. AT&T made an offer to buy the network from excite@home and the bond holders didn't think that it was high enough. They think that AT&T or some other entity who has an interest in having the network operational will make a better offer when they are under a more real threat of having the network turned off.

      --
      I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
    2. Re:Shutting down bad move for both sides? by Phil+Wherry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, it's definitely a bad move for the consumer, but it's pretty clear that the consumer hasn't been an especially high priority in the broadband industry for a while now. It's fairly telling when the cable companies are the customer service leaders.

      I think occasional massive hiccups like this (and the Northpoint DSL debacle that preceded it) are part of the price of an unregulated industry. We'd see this same kind of brinksmanship and the same sort of politically or financially motivated service outages from our telephone service providers were it not for regulations mandating a scheme of interconnection and settlement fees. But does anyone really want that same sort of regulatory scheme for broadband? I might change my mind later, but it seems like the occasional outage like this one might be the lesser of two pretty big evils.

    3. Re:Shutting down bad move for both sides? by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 5, Insightful
      It's extortion. AT&T made an offer to buy the network from excite@home and the bond holders didn't think that it was high enough. They think that AT&T or some other entity who has an interest in having the network operational will make a better offer when they are under a more real threat of having the network turned off.
      cNet says "Attorneys for the bondholders insist that cable companies are playing a 'game of chicken,'"

      Seems to me the bondholders are the ones playing chicken. I don't get it: "The network is worth more than you're offering. Pay us more or at midnight the network goes down!" "OK, fine, shut it down; then the network will be worth zero." Seems to me the bondholders made a bad investment and are trying to get their money back. That's the risk they took; they should be big boys and take their lumps, like everyone else who lost on the .com bubble burst. 30 cents on the dollar is better than nothing.

      Funny how not too long ago the cable companies said they couldn't possibly allow competition, that @Home was the only game allowed. Too bad they didn't listen to us customers and allow us to choose our own ISP.

      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
    4. Re:Shutting down bad move for both sides? by Watts+Martin · · Score: 3, Insightful
      But does anyone really want that same sort of regulatory scheme for broadband?

      I don't know. We've kind of become conditioned to think of government regulation as evil until proven otherwise, but as a former telco guy (I worked at Intermedia Communications, now a part of BorgCom, for five years), there are two things I'd observe:

      • The deregulation of the telco industry in 1996 was supposed to lead to greater choice and lower prices. By and large it's led to much less choice as companies started frantically merging with one another, and it hasn't really led to lower prices, either. Long-distance has come down, and indeed it came down due to market forces--but those market forces exist because of two things: the shift toward data-centric backbones, and the effect of my second point, which is:
      • What choice you do have in selecting phone companies comes about solely because of government mandates, not deregulation. Your local loop--the "last mile," as it's often called--is owned by a local phone company, and they would not be providing access to that loop to their competitors unless they were forced to.

      Honestly, I think "as little regulation as necessary to work" is a laudable goal in nearly any case--but sometimes a little regulation makes the market work better. If cable companies were forced to open their data lines to any local ISPs willing to pay reasonable rates ("reasonable" being roughly defined as "a price which still lets them be competitive with an ISP owned by the cable company itself"), I suspect it would be much better for consumers, better for competing ISPs--and probably ultimately better for cable companies, too.

  4. As seen on Excite by Alien54 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Assuming that they will go off the air at mignight, here is the official announcement from Excite:
    ExciteAtHome Cleared to Disconnect
    Updated: Fri, Nov 30 3:46 PM EST

    A judge cleared the way for bankrupt ExciteAtHome to turn off its high-speed Internet cable service as early as Friday night, which could affect about 4 million subscribers around the country.

    The cable companies that connect their customers to the high-speed network said they plan to appeal the decision to U.S. District Court in San Francisco as soon as possible.

    Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson said Redwood City-based ExciteAtHome could reject its existing contracts with the cable companies as early as 3 a.m. EST Saturday, when their contracts expire.

    Carlson gave ExciteAtHome the leeway to end the contracts after concluding they had become "clearly burdensome" to the company.

    Under the contracts, ExciteAtHome executives said the company was losing up to $6 million per week.

    A burnrate of 6 million per week is not good.

    Someone grab a screen shot for the dot-bomb museum, please.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
    1. Re:As seen on Excite by Anonymous+Freak · · Score: 5, Informative
      ...here is the official announcement from Excite:


      Um, no. Just because it's on excite.com, doesn't make it official. It's actually an AP (Associated Press) newswire story that just about every news web site carries. It just so happens that Excite has a news web site (news.excite.com) that carried the story. It is exactly the same as when the cable television station MSNBC does a story on Microsoft. It's not an official statement from Microsoft, it's just a news organization reporting on a company, that, by coincidence, happens to be its parent company.

      --
      Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
      The purpose of that site was not known.
    2. Re:As seen on Excite by ortholattice · · Score: 3, Insightful
      A burnrate of 6 million per week is not good.

      Well, that's over 4 million subscribers -- $1.50 per subscriber per week. Would the subscribers not be willing to absorb a price increase of what amounts to a cup of coffee per week to keep their cable modem service? And any more than that, say $2.00 per week, would be a $100 million per year profit. Sure you might lose a few but most would probably pay -- I mean what's the alternative?

    3. Re:As seen on Excite by tzanger · · Score: 3, Informative

      The rest of the money is probably spent on their internal data lines connecting POPs, devaluation of hardware, facilities costs, insurance, support /administrative /billing /sales staff wages and benefits, etc. It could add up to quite a bit.

      Devaluation of equipment? Are you serious?

      I do the network admin / deployment at a small (1600 user) ISP. We run around like crazy looking for "ancient" AS5200s because they just plain work. We get 47 lines out of each one (bastards made us use PRIs instead of DEAs so now we "retaliated" by asking for NFAS) and once configured, they just work.

      I can't imagine cable being much different: You have your super-expensive head-end for each trunk, and once it is configured, you leave it be. Keep some parts around or, if you've got the cash, a hot spare and your equipment doesn't change. It doesn't devaluate in the sense that it wears out. Your bandwidth costs will be through the roof, yes, but that's what the economy of volume does for you. You have a 30MBit pipe for each trunk, a killer web cache and maybe 155MBit upstream. (I'm guessing here: Bell Canada's HSE (DSL) internet bandwidth overcommit rates being > 100:1, cable's can't be that far off)

      The point is that yes the equipment is expensive and the bandwidth is expensive. But the equipment doesn't wear out. I'm sure you can get some pretty sweet deals on bandwidth when you tell your provider that you want enough feeds to service a nation. It had to have been mismanaged. This kind of story isn't new; this particular one just happens to have hit a hell of a lot of people at once.

  5. Damit! @Home ... by TheViffer · · Score: 5, Funny
    is going back on there word. It can't be!

    starts looking in the back side of computer boxes to figure our which one has the modem installed

    --
    -- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
  6. This is logical by locust · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I love the logic, the moment @home shuts down it won't be just hemoraging cash. It will be hemoraging users too. Once those users find alternative service, they won't go back to @home unless @home makes them a really sweet deal. That will just make the cost of starting back up even higher.


    Time to starting looking for a new provider.


    --locust

  7. It's a shame by M_Talon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I do feel bad because I have a lot of friends who don't have land-based phone lines anymore. They switched to cable for the computer and cell phones for phone use. If their service lapses, they're going to be SOL.

    I don't see any reason why Excite won't kill the service tonight. They've got nothing to lose, since they're already bankrupt. Shutting off service just stems the bleeding. The other companies are going to get hurt by this, and it's going to put high-speed internet access in a bad light.

    But, I guess this is what happens when one company controls the lion's share of internet access. Back in the day of local ISP's, one of them going under wasn't the end of the world. Can you imagine what would happen if AOL or MSN turned off their service? (and yes, I'm bloody well expecting a smartaleck response there).

    I'm just glad I never got rid of my dial up access. I have the feeling my friends are going to be coming over to get their net fix during the outage.

    --
    Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
    1. Re:It's a shame by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 5, Funny
      Can you imagine what would happen if AOL or MSN turned off their service?

      Immediate eradication of code red and nimda?

      Really? What would the downside be?

      --
      That is all.
  8. I dont see by Heem · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I dont see how shutting something down is a victory for anyone. So they owe 750 million bucks. When they stop getting 45% of the cable modem users ~$50 a month, they are still gonna be 750 million in debt, with no income. I dont understand. Of course, IANAA (i am not an accountant)

    --
    Don't Tread on Me
  9. AT&T@Home == excite@Home? by ApoxyButt · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm a bit confused... if you signed up through AT&T for @Home access, does that mean you're losing your service with excite's expiration? My parents have AT&T@Home service, and I'm worried that this'll stop the flow of virally infected email that lets me know my Dad's still alive.

    1. Re:AT&T@Home == excite@Home? by Xibby · · Score: 5, Informative

      Will I experience any interruptions with my AT&T Broadband high-speed cable Internet service?
      Your AT&T Broadband high-speed cable Internet service connectivity, e-mail and Personal Web pages will not be affected by Excite@Home's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. However, your home.excite.com home page may become temporarily unavailable.

      What will happen to my high-speed cable Internet service if AT&T Broadband's proposal to purchase the Excite@Home network is not approved?
      If the proposal to purchase the Excite@Home network is not approved, your home page content may be temporarily unavailable, but you will still have access to your e-mail and the Internet.

      --
      I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
  10. Their own fault by evenprime · · Score: 5, Informative

    If they were a little more reasonable about their terms of service, they could have charged a little more. I would gladly have paid a small fee for the opportunity to run my own web server, or to talk to tech support people who didn't think my problems were due to not running windows. I moved to speakeasy because I wanted a more freedom about what to do with my computers and didn't want to be treated like a clueless luser by people who naturally assume that if it is not windows, it is broken

    --

    "Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
    I think that goes for OS's too
  11. Why don't WE buy it? by Bitmanhome · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We have 4 million users .. if each one sent me $100, we'd have more than AT&T's bid. And for $250, we'd have a billion, which not only covers @home's debt, but is likely WAY more than AT&T wants to spend.

    Would you pay $250 for a share of your own cablenet company?

    -B

    --
    Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
  12. This really doesn't make sense. by JustAnotherReader · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As an @Home subscriber I just have to wonder: How can they have a 45% market share AND charge $39.95 per month and still not make money? If this was some bizzare dot-com startup I could understand it (we're going to give the user the ability to change the contrast and brightness of their monitors via the internet). But this is a basic infrastructure company with steady income and a massive market share.

    Certainly they are not taking in the entire $39.95 each month. The local provider (Cox Cable in my town) obviously takes a portion of that montly bill, but Excite! must still be receiving a ton of money each month.

    Moreover, they have a monopoly. In my neighborhood I don't have a choice between Cox and Roadrunner. It's either Cox@Home or a phone modem (we're too far away from the CO for DSL). So they can't be losing customers since there's no compitition. And even if their competition is DSL then their competitors are going out of business as well (whatever happened to Covad?)

    Sombody's got to be taking some money home with them at night.

    1. Re:This really doesn't make sense. by JWhitlock · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I was looking over my 2001 Demotivators calendar (2002 version for sale here). It says that on October 25, 1999, "A zero-revenue online greeting company called "Blue Mountain" sells for $780 million to Excite".

      I did a quick search of the Excite web site. That same month, they promised to donate up to $3 million to a Meg Ryan-sponsered charity.

      They had a revenue of $113 million for that quarter.

      The 1999 news site has a ton of stuff like this. The 2000 site seems to have as much, but the last announcement is in May, 2000.

      Does that shed some light on where the money went? Just another company, thinking they would keep getting exponential growth, making money out of nothing, with no provisions for an economic downturn.

      I'll miss being a LPB on Counterstrike.

    2. Re:This really doesn't make sense. by IntlHarvester · · Score: 3, Informative

      Certainly they are not taking in the entire $39.95 each month. The local provider (Cox Cable in my town) obviously takes a portion of that montly bill, but Excite! must still be receiving a ton of money each month.

      Nah - they only get about $15 of that $40. The rest stays with the cable company (who is greedly eyeing that $15 for themselves, or selling your ass to Microsoft or AOL for some change).

      Furthermore, they have to take all of the customer service calls, which is why they are screwed. They never thought there would be so many slashdotters rubbing their minimum wage idiots' noses into the existence of their NetBSD on Mac IIcx Firewalls. Of course, they wouldn't have had such support costs if their network was better run (but again that's probably because they were undercapitalized by the cable companies who created them, umm, not to mention their dotcrap buying spree).

      Those of you who are being cut off will be lucky if you pick up 'just a pipe' service. This could be the big Interactive TV Convergance shakedown that the cablecos have wanted from day 1.

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    3. Re:This really doesn't make sense. by Fnkmaster · · Score: 3, Funny

      LOL. This is the best description I've ever seen of the fucking bullshit hoops I've had to jump through for AT&T, both under previous RoadRunner network management and under the new, substantially worse @home folks. At least before we got moved to @home I knew I could call after midnight and usually get somebody half-way competent who could tell me if there was a network problem or not rather than force me to pretend I was rebooting a non-existant Windows 98 box. :)

  13. Info For Comcast@home customers by FlaviusVarus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here is the info page for Comcast@home users

    http://www.comcastonline.com/info.htm

    --
    No Sig
    1. Re:Info For Comcast@home customers by weave · · Score: 5, Funny
      Oh wow, Comcast finally added something to that page (at the bottom) today...

      Why should I stay with Comcast @Home, given the current situation?

      Before you decide to make a switch, we ask that you remember that your service has not been interrupted at this time. In addition, switching to another provider such as DSL could leave you with:

      • Slower speeds
      • Higher Monthly Fees
      • Long-Term Contracts

      I got news for those fuckers. A 300 baud modem is a faster speed than ZERO....

  14. Service tiers... by fmaxwell · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem with the residential broadband market is that it relies on users not using much of the bandwidth available to them. But the people that most flock to broadband connections are those that want bandwidth.

    I'm fighting with Cox Road Runner (Fairfax, VA) about policy changes. Although not currently prohibited, it appears that they are trying to pressure residential users that run their own (passworded) FTP servers, Telnet servers, mail, and web servers into buying Cox Business Internet services. One problem: My 1.5mbps download pipe costs $250 on business vs. $40 on residential. Odd too, how they are only discussing these server limitations now that they have a high-priced "business service" to offer.

    Road Runner, @home, and other cable modem services need to start pricing more realistically. If someone wants just "basic" service for e-mail and web pages, then give them 512K PPPOE so that they can't run servers. And charge them $40 a month for it. If someone wants to run servers for personal use or needs a bit more bandwidth to dowload Linux and *BSD ISO images, give them 1.5MB, 1 static IP and charge them $90. But don't try to make residential users pay for business class services that cost as much as a car payment! People just won't make the jump from $40 to $250 -- unless they really are running businesses.

    1. Re:Service tiers... by weave · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Doesn't sound like anything that a nice iptables rule that checks for their port scanner subnet and responds with a "-J REJECT -reject-with tcp-reset" wouldn't solve! :-)

  15. This could be huge for DSL by ApoxyButt · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, maybe. It all depends on whether or not there's anybody waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum when Excite moves out.

    I work in the digital loop carrier industry, and the technology exists to extend DSL broadband to people outside of the normal DSL range of a mile or so from the phone company's Central Office. The company I work for makes a box that allows phone companies to send all their voice and data over fiber (or copper, or wireless) to a remote terminal, and then it's from THAT point that the 1 mile limitation kicks in.

    The problem for John Q. Dialup is that the phone companies are just too big and slow to put this technology out in the field. Our stuff is just now going through testing in SBC, but how long it will be before a large number of people can live 10 miles from the Central Office and still get DSL is anybody's guess.

    Right now, many of the people with the best broadband opportunities are actually rural customers! This technology I'm talking about is pretty attractive to smaller Mom & Pop phone companies because due to the low initial cost of this particular product.

    I got lucky: my aparment complex just happens to fall into one of SBC Ameritech's DSL sweet spots. I think when I get around to getting a house, I'm going to be looking very closely at the DSL availability!

  16. Re:Not a surprise by JWhitlock · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Speak for yourself.

    DSL - tried to get it a year ago, and I'm just a bit too far away from the CO to get service. It will probably take 3 visits and 3 mornings off of work to verify that I can't get DSL - and even then, I'll never have official word, just the hearsay from a disgruntled tech.

    802.11b wireless - Several providers? What part of the country is that again? Here in my corner of the midwest, there are a few less options.

    Satellite - "Games are wasteful of valuable bandwidthm especially given the current shortage". Guess us gamers should go the e-ghetto where we belong...

    T1 - This would be a great option if a) I had the expertise to set this up in a timely manner b) I had the capital to pay for the initial equipment c) I knew ANY neighbors in a mile radius that would pay for a connection and the 802.11b equipment. Sorry, it's not really viable right now.

    Dialup. See Satellite.

    Sorry. I got a cable modem because I like an always on connection, and I really enjoy online games. I kept it because it really enhances the online gaming experience, even on my (comparatively) slow machine, and it helps facilitate my new linux habit (45 minutes to download an ISO image from a public server).

    But hey, thanks for making me feel like an idiot for going for the fast, easy, cheap option and not investigating the other lame-ass offers in town.

  17. I'd like to see an explanation of HOW this happens by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I understand that they haven't been making money but how do they go for so long without adjusting their plan to make money? Wouldn't they have seen a while back that they are going down the tube?

    There are two ways to make a business profitable. Reduce costs or increase income.

    I would have thought that a cable service could increase it's monthly charges and still made money. They would have lost some customers to DSL but a lot of customers don't have any other choice. If it takes $60/month/user to make money then that's what has to be charged.

    So let's see... As far as broadband goes, we've lost Northpoint, Rhythms, Covad just filed chapter 11. AT&T and Excite(Cox?) just filed chapter 11.

    Who is left?
    SWBell is my local phone company and they have DSL. Surprise that all their competitors went out of business considering SWBell was providing the lines.

    I think we either need to make a concious decision:
    A. We don't want to let the phone company sell DSL, and we don't want the Cable company to provide cable access only provide the lines so other companies can resell.

    B. We want the phone and cable companies to be the sole providers of the service and the line. We want it to be government regulated to keep us from getting screwed and to set prices.

    Personally, I vote for A.

    What is everyone else's toughts?

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
  18. Wow, this really sucks by Naum · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Cable modems via Cox came to the neighborhood back in August and I quickly signed up and I believe I have a final payment to make on the cable modem purchased.

    I just shut off my 2nd line and dial up provider - now it seems that may have been a rash move. Cox has a info page up saying they're going to "negotiate into the night" to set up a stopgap arrangement to keep us online, but I'm pessimistic as it seems that outside of a ridiculous amount of loot deposited to Excite, there's not a lot of incentive to be agreeable.

    The judge's commentary really irks me. Yes, for many, the net is not a necessity. But for people like me who rely on it for work and my wife who needs access for school, it is a utility on par with the phones and electricity. It seems that the customer counts last - do these idiots (Excite creditors) think they'll get any more money if there is any lengthy service disruption? I suppose many of us have to take without viable alternatives - here, no DSL is available and the other alternatives (Sprint Broadband, satellite) are unreliable and unsuitable for games and conferencing (according to their own sales brochure material that caused me to cancel an order for those services) - DSL and cable modems (outside of a T1 line) are the only viable options for the home user.

    --

    AZspot
  19. Is this right. News.com seems to disagree... by sterno · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just read the article on news.com which discusses this ruling but it seemed to make clear two things:

    1) that the parties must go back to the bargaining table
    2) that the service being disconnected was unlikely

    What it sounds like happened is that the judge said they can cut the contracts but there is nothing right now saying affirmatively that the service will be shut off. Basically this just means it is legal for excite to cancel the existing contracts so that they can re-negotiate them.

    So I don't think excite is out yet...

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
  20. If you let @Home go under... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 5, Funny
    ... then the terrorists have already won.

    Time for a Congressional bailout.

    P.S. It's for the children...

    --
    That is all.
  21. Actually, he's a hair low. by raygundan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    According to the articles, @home has 4.1 million cable modem users.

  22. Excite Timeline by Alien54 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Info from the official PDF. Even from this you can see what the problem was.
    • 11/30 Excite@Home pulls the plug
    • 07/01 Excite@Home surpasses 3.67 million subscribers
    • 01/01 Excite@Home surpasses 3 million subscribers
    • 11/00 Excite@Home secures position as nation's 5th largest paid ISP and #1broadband ISP
    • 08/00 Excite@Home surpasses 2 million broadband subscribers
    • 03/00 Excite@Home principal cable partners extend distribution agreements, AT&T assumes more prominent role
    • 12/99 One million cable modem subscribers
    • 05/99 NetherlandsExcite@Home merger completed, and @Home service launched in launched in Netherlands
    • 04/99 500K @Home subscribers, and Japan cable modem service joint venture announced
    • 01/99 Excite and @Home Network announce merger with initial capacity for 5 million users net backbone @Home Network creates new Internetbackbone with initial capacity for 5 million users
    • 06/98 @Home goes retail, and @Home hits the road with a mall tour across North America
    • 04/98 100K @Home subscribers, Netherlands cable modem service announced, and @Home Network builds a new corporate campusvice announced,
    • 01/98 50K @Home subscribers
    • 07/97 @Home Network IPO
    • 04/97 Rogers and Shaw join, and Canadian cable modem service announced
    • 09/96 @Home service in Fremont, CA
    • 08/96 Cox and Comcast join as equity partners
    • 04/96 Excite IPO
    • 03/95 @Home Network founded by TCI and Kleiner Perkins
    Capacity for 5 million, while servicing only 10% of that is not a good business plan.
    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  23. Not necessarily... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Informative
    Even from this you can see what the problem was. ...
    Capacity for 5 million, while servicing only 10% of that is not a good business plan.

    Not necessarily.

    Suppose (hypothetically):

    Your network will support 5,000,000 subscribers,

    Your non-recurring costs are $1/subscriber-month,

    Your per-subscriber costs are $10/subscriber-month, and

    You charge $50/subscriber-month.

    This:

    Breaks even at 125,000 subscribers,

    Makes $195,000,000/month ($2.3 Billion/yr) at 5,000,000 subscribers, and

    Breaks down at 5,000,001 subscribers.

    Of course that's not what they did. Nevertheless, they were up to 73.4% of the design capacity of the network by 7/11. So (unless their business model didn't include making a profit until their capacity was saturated) I don't think lack of customers was the problem.

    With no data but that timeline I'd wonder if they underestimated their per-user recurring costs (such as support) or their network capacity (which maps back into per-user recurring costs through extra support when they saturate and the connections start to degrade).

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  24. Oops. Wrong buzzword. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Informative

    When I said "non-recurring costs" I meant "recurring fixed overhead" (i.e. recurring costs that are not per-user).

    Sorry 'bout that.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  25. Nope by JohnnyBolla · · Score: 3, Informative

    You lose your IP address for one. Most of the IP's were rented by @home. In many cases you also lose your bandwidth beyond the gateway, @home leased the circuits. That's no the same for all markets, hope it works out for you.

    --
    Carpe Deez
  26. Excite was drain, not @Home by Eric+Green · · Score: 3, Insightful
    They're currently making money off of @Home. 73.4% of the design capacity is plenty to make money off of. What sucked them down was two things:
    1. The "Excite!" portal, and
    2. The bond payments
    However, by shutting the network down they've just destroyed its value. I'll probably be down tomorrow, and if so, I will swiftly arrange for an alternative arrangement on Monday and never return to @Home.

    -E

    --
    Send mail here if you want to reach me.
    1. Re:Excite was drain, not @Home by daviddennis · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bonds are also investments, but are very different from stocks.

      Bonds are an obligation to pay. They are like a credit card with a very high credit limit. If you got a credit card and bought a spiffy Apple Cinema Display with it, you have to pay the money back, but the people who loaned you the money aren't going to get more money if the Cinema Display doubles your productivity.

      If you can't pay back the debt, you either renegotiate it - just like a credit card - or go into bankruptcy. If you go into bankruptcy, you probably have to give up your spiffy Cinema Display.

      If you issued the bonds to make investments like Blue Mountain Arts, worth nearly a billion at the height of the boom, and then sell it for $30 million, the bond holders (credit card company) get nothing.

      But if the business you've built up has value, as Excite@Home does, you can sell the business and pay back the bonds.

      The heart of this issue is that AT&T is trying to buy Excite@Home for a bit under 50c on the dollar. Understandably, the bondholders want to sell it for more like 90c so they can get most of their money back. So they are insisting on shutting down the network, because then they will no longer be losing $6 million a month, and they want to convince AT&T to pay more for the assets.

      Of course if they actually do shut down, Excite@Home is worth LESS, not more, and AT&T will probably wind up paying LESS for the assets, if it even wants them anymore.

      In short, the bondholders' gambit looks like it's failing, and they will wind up getting about 10c on the dollar instead of 50c.

      Hope this has been informative.

      D

  27. AT&T does DSL too, right? by Eric+Green · · Score: 3

    From what I can tell, AT&T wins either way. They do sell DSL service too, after all.

    --
    Send mail here if you want to reach me.
  28. AT&T and Static IPs by Wanker · · Score: 3, Informative

    AT&T's support lines are swamped, even though it's the middle of the night. I managed to get through on chat much more quickly than the support number. (Though the person I spoke with on the phone was much friendlier than the one in chat...)

    Here's what I found out:
    + The chat person said flat-out that AT&T does not support static IPs and that I was basically hosed. She referred me to the Win32 "configurator" executable on the http://newuser.attbi.com website. I didn't bother asking for a linux version. ;-)
    + The phone person said that since everything was so new that they didn't have their act together for static IPs yet and to run dynamic for a couple weeks until things settle down.

    Either way, I'm stuck on DHCP for a while, but the phone support seemed to imply there was some light at the end of the tunnel once the initial rush of problems are sorted out. For me, this is only an issue for remote access since my internal network is all NATted anyhow.

    My guess is that the Excite --> AT&T transition would be completely transparent to those on DHCP who renew their leases after midnight.

    And of course, if they try to force me to stay on DHCP, there's always DSL...

  29. Comcast Online Customer Information Hotline update by spoonyfork · · Score: 3, Informative
    As of 01-DEC-2001 10:00 AM EST according to the message at the Comcast Online Customer Information Hotline 1-888-433-6963, they are currently unaware of any interuptions in service. They advise that should your service become interupted, call the Customer Service Hotline at 1-888-793-0800.

    I am a Comcast@home subscriber in the Metro Detroit area and had unresponsive DNS this morning but they're responding now.

    --
    Speak truth to power.