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Some People @Home, Some Not @Home
11thangel writes: "Dotcomscoop is reporting that Excite@home has released a statement saying that they have discontinued service to AT&T, as it's certain negotiations will be fruitless. All others are still at the bargaining table. Earlier statements indicated that an example would be made out of one provider, AT&T being the obvious target. Everyone else keep your fingers crossed." There's a Reuters story about AT&T being unplugged. Various submissions have noted that some people who still have connectivity have lost their DNS servers. Just add "64.28.67.150 slashdot.org" to your hosts file and you should be good to go. :)
I'm here in Iowa (under AT&T @Home), and my DNS has been down all day. It came back up an hour ago.
:-(
My mail server reports that my account doesn't exist
Overall, I am impressed how AT&T has moved all its customers off Excite and onto their own network... I dunno how they did it.
I clicked on the link in the main article, and what are the words I see? "Overwhelming traffic to DotcomScoop.com has created technical problems leading to data loss. Recent news stories published on the site are lost for the time being. We will continue to provide updates as news warrants."
/. effect hits them. I feel their pain :)
And this is before the
Just to be fair to the trolls...
Coincidently (?) their building sign only has "Excite@" illuminated (the "home" portion is dark)... or maybe it's irony... sarcasm ? ^_^
I got a letter this week from Charter (my cable TV provider) saying they were trying to work out a transition plan. My service went out sometime between 4pm yesterday and noon today (I was out of town)
In the mail, I had a setup CD from Charter. I unplugged my router, ran the Windows program, copied the changed settings to my router, and and am now back up and running, with less than a 24 hour outtage.
On the downside, It added a Charter logo to IE, and changed my IE color scheme to flat white, and set my default page to charter.msn.com. But I'm just glad to be reconnected with no problems.
The only thing I'm really worried about right now is losing my e-mail account and having friends get their messages bounced before I can tell them my new address (whatever that may be). It's almost as bad as going through a change of area code with the phone company, only here, the grace period is a matter of days.
Is your company running tools written by ma
I changed DNS to the old Mediaone servers and I'm working again. My DHCP-generated IP address changed. Mail and news are not up yet.
Details on how to change are here. I assume other folks can replace the "ga" in the URL with their state or city name. There was an email sent out last week with more details.
I'm in iowa too, I was under AT&T@Home, but it switched to mediacom about a month or 2 ago. my DNS was down this morning, but it came back up a few hours ago, and that's the only problems i've had. I guess I'm lucky that I have mediacom now...
Don't know if this is a planned outage or what, but I was able to hijack my old dialup's dns.
Play Command HQ online
I moved from Vancouver to Oxford, and from @Home to free university-supplied 100Mbps ethernet, a couple months ago.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Guys.. you can use ANY dns server on the internet pretty much. Might be that tinsy bit extra resolving latency, but the crisis is minimal.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
If you are one of the many disconnected today, here's something you can try to get back online:
If your modem still has sync (cable modem is showing online, or solid cable light - depending on what modem you have) but have you no connectivity, set your IP and host information in statically, but specify non-@Home DNS numbers.
This got me back online, so it might be worth your while to try it youself.
I've got access through Comcast@Home here in Richmond, VA. We're still up but I keep the green lights in the corner of my eye.
Mail, News, and DNS servers are all still active on their original IPs. We have not received any official email from Comcast concerning the status of their network. They're either solid with their own network and backbone, or they're just waiting to die. Either way, I wish we would get informed.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Insight Communications has released the following statement today to their customers:
Insight, along with other cable operators, is currently in the tail end of positive negotiations with @Home. At this time, we fully expect to maintain connectivity for our Insight@Home customer base.
We recognize that certain communities in our Central Illinois service areas have seen an interruption in service this morning due to an @Home error. We are working diligently to correct this issue and expect full service to be restored today. We apologize to these customers for any inconvenience this has caused.
Thank you for your continued patience as we work through this issue.
use this if your dns is not working.......
:) and a wonderfully easy address to remember as well. I use it as my secondary dns on the rare occasions when my isp's dns (san.rr.com) is choking.
4.2.2.1 (vnsc-pri.sys.gtei.net)
yes, thats a real dns server
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
provided to you by verizon and painfully easy to remember.
I'm still shocked about how this is happening in the USA. I mean, if it happened in some eastern bloc country, or some nation in Africa that is very corrupt / piss poor, I could understand, but here?
No offense to people in those countries, btw, it seems that the telecommunications infrastructure in most countries is beter than that of the usa.
I honestly don't understand why the service costs so much in the usa - In BC, Canada, 1.5mb down / 768 up, 2 static ip's for $40 a month CANADIAN! Here, I pay $55ish for a whole 768dn / 100k up, a dynamic ip and shitty ping. WTF. The Canadian dollar is worth less, so it stands to reason that the equipment costs more for the Canadian providers (because they take in canadian $, not us $) . . .
bah, at least my dsl provider looks like they will be in service for the next month or so....
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Do they exist? I know my ISP has a few backup servers, but for times like this, it'd be a nice piece of information to know.
I used the DNS listings from their whois entry. Worked just fine.
The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. -- John Gilmore
I've been online all day with AT&T Broadband through their MediaOne network. All is well here in MA.
Glad to see AT&T couldn't get away with their usual tactics again.
With NorthPoint (former major DSL provider), a bankruptcy judge let AT&T buy NorthPoint's DSL lines for a song and let them cut off all of NorthPoint's 400,000 customers.
Sound stupid? It was.
Thank you, oh Judge Thomas Carlson of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco for at least giving the bondholders, the company and the customers some options, no matter how few they might be...
How about making a thread for each affected state, for easier use by people looking for info?
I'll start the Iowa thread.
Iowa City, now Mediacom as of about 4 months ago, appears to be up as of 4:30 central time. I think that's 23:30 GMT 1/1/01, but I may be off an hour.
We had DNS problems this morning, but I added the university's dns servers and got back up immediately. Seems to be working now just fine, although a little slow.
DSL wasn't such a bad way to go after all. Verizon isn't going away anytime soon, the service is fast, reliable and always on.
Maybe this will be how the battle of DSL vs Cable will be decided - in bankruptcy court.
Take care,
Brian
--
Come and get a free Palm m100 --
No longer have the (city)1.(state).home.com, just an abbreviation of the city.state.
Insted of the 24.X it is now 66.X.X.X.
Here's one pisser I've noticed, it does not like you to try to do the static IP address.
Kinda annoying, as I have ICS setup to my Mac and it is *dog slow* when run with DHCP for some reason.
Well, gotta tweak and see if that shitty upload cap has been removed too.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I don't know if any one noticed this... but posting DNS Server addresses on the web probably won't do people who can't reach a DNS server much good.
Although the addresses are nice to have for reference... I doubt posting this information here is going to be very useful for someone already have it.
here it is: http://www.att.com/press/item/0,1354,4100,00.html it just seems like this is typical of AT&T they want it, so they will try to get it cheap, then cut the users loose. looks like the victim is once again, the consumer.
Hmmm, with Excite pulling the plug on a large portion of its subscribers (AT&T), shouldn't that free up quite a bit of bandwith for the rest of the @Home customers (Insight, Comcast, Cox)?
Maybe now I can return to the days of 50ms CounterStrike ping that I had in back January. Suhweet!
Of course, that is until Excite pulls this shit again in 2 months.
AT&T has moved 10% of their customers over from Excite@Home to their own service, but that's an understatement. AT&T Broadband, as it now exists, was formed from the merger of TCI and MediaOne under the AT&T Broadband brand name. TCI was one of the three Excite@Home core companies (also Comcast and Cox). MediaOne was using their own network, but the RoadRunner portal; as part of the purchase agreement, AT&T would switch MediaOne over to the Excite@Home portal by 31 December 2001, which they did this summer, but they kept MediaOne on its own network. About 50% of AT&T's customers were already using this network, so when AT&T extended the network and switched 10% of the old TCI customers over to it, they really have about 60% of their cable customers already running fine. (I'm running off a MediaOne connection in Boston now, and I had no downtime at all.)
One good solution for us linux-heads with home networks is to set up a caching-only DNS server. This is as simple as installing the "caching-nameserver" RPM (along with the bind RPM, of course). Then just configure all your servers to point to your caching nameserver host for DNS and you won't be at the mercy of AT&Ts nameservers any more.
...
This let me bypass the AT&T nameservers that were having problems and get back online in no time.
-----
To test it first use this:
$ nslookup
> lserver
Default server:
Address: #53
> www.yahoo.com
Server:
Address: #53
Non-authoritative answer:
www.yahoo.com canonical name = www.yahoo.akadns.net
Name: www.yahoo.akadns.net
Address: 216.115.102.77
... and so on
> exit
$
-----
As I mentioned in a posting under the old article, static IP allocations are on hold until AT&T sorts out which networks go where in their internal network configuration databases. Those of us with static IP allocations will just have to wait a few weeks. (However, I've been told by DHCP users that generally AT&T does not aggressively recycle IPs, so even DHCP-based IPs tend to be fairly stable.)
I should also add that the new AT&T DHCP equipment seems to work with linux's "pump" DHCP client, whereas the old Excite@Home equipment in my area did not.
All my friends used to laugh at me when I told them I have both DSL and a Cable Modem.
Who's laughing now?
Hello. I have Comcast @Home, and I was a little worried once I heard that @Home dropped AT&T. I was wondering if anyone knew what Comcast is doing, I think I heard that they are putting up their own network, but how long will I be out with Internet Access? I might have to go buy a $12 56k Modem and get a netzero account if worst comes to worst.
As someone who has a long history of problems with AT&T @Home, as the shutdown deadline approached I had planned to lose connectivity, probably for a few days. I must say I am impressed with AT&T.
I was online until about 01:00 today and did not lose connection. When I got up this morning I had no connectivity. I followed the instructions that AT&T had sent to all subscribers via email and snail mail, and lo and behold, AT&T's backup network was in place! My total time lost was maybe 10 minutes to reconfigure my router/firewall.
I wish we still had the old RoadRunner service - dunno why the hell AT&T BB dropped them for Excite@Home a few months ago - I guess because the rest of the AT&T BB customers are on @home, but I would gladly pay an extra 5 bucks a month if RR had jacked our rates up as I think they did with lots of their customers, if they had given us a good, solid reliable network. When will people get it through their thick skulls - I don't WANT content from my ISP, the excite part of Excite@Home was therefore useless to me and anyone who is halfway clueful, and the @home part had the worst service ever. What a moronic move on AT&T's part.
I have to commend Medicom for keeping their service going strong. Besides the afformentioned DNS problems(Was over night and back by 9am CST), there has been zero interruption of service... Lets hope that they can work out a deal with Excite@Home, or it may be back to dialup for quite a number of people....
DocChaos
DocChaos -------- I may be crazy, but then again I may be crazy.
Just saw this press release stating that Covad is offering @Home customers the opportunity to switch any @Home customer to DSL for free (free hardware & install).
Might be worth investigating...
People aren't port 80 telnetting into that IP already, and manually typing in the GET HTTP 1.1 themselves? Gee, they must not be serious slashdotters.
I lost access around 8am this morning. Friends around the city and over in Michigan are reporting the same.
I did get an automated phone call from AT&T this morning stating they're working to reconnect us, and it will be several days.
FYI, don't bother to contact AT&T tech support -- they're completely clueless and relying on macro-generated answers to your questions.
I woke up this morning, and all my cable modem lights were on as usual.
I just had to switch my firewall from a static IP address to instead use DHCP, and everything was dandy. The AT&T nameservers provided by DHCP work. What's weird is that they provided about fifty nameservers, and a bunch of them are 0.0.0.0. However, the first two work fine.
E-mail works, usenet works, everything! I'm very impressed, and very happy with AT&T's transition. Kudos to their network engineers!
--Bruce
P.S. The service is a bit slower. I am getting about 800Kbps max download speed. With @Home I often got over 1Mbps. Still, it sure beats dialup.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
I'm not sure it will help a lot of people, but this is what I just did to get reconnected. (Gotta feed the /. habit.) I'm in Fort Collins, CO if that's relevant to anyone. I haven't got a phone call from AT&T yet. But that may well be on account of the phone number they have listed for me is disconnected right now.
I did try sending out DHCP requests before doing this, but never got any replies. I wouldn't call this course of action exceptionally friendly behaviour. But the web sites AT&T listed in some email this past week are either unreachable or have nothing helpful.
- Listen for IP traffic coming over the modem. I did tcpdump -n -i eth0 and figured that the not-10.x.x.x router doing all the ARP requests was the neighborhood router.
- Make note of several of the IP addresses that the router continues to ask for and stop tcpdump. Also note the suspected router address.
- Set your IP address to one of the addresses from the previous step (see ifconfig(8) for help on that.) Add a default route through the router you found in the last step. route add -net default x.x.x.x )
- Hope someone follows up with a suggestion on getting DHCP working again or that you get a phone call from AT&T.
Gotchas:Good Luck!
I have block sync...but I cannot get a dhcp address, nor does setting up a static ip (which used to work before) do me much good. I can ping my gateway, but nothing gets past it.
"I drank what?" -Socrates
I was up and running just fine at 6 AM. around quarter to 7 my telnet session closed and that's all she wrote. Any attempt at a traceroute to anywhere dies either immediately or just past getting to the gateway. I'm resorting to my laptop and my aol account right now.
The situation in Chicagoland is not so good. I'm connected through the Romeoville/Joliet hub, which services a large fraction of the south suburbs, and absolutely nothing is working. My friend in Bolingbrook (a bit farther north) is having a similar experience. The cable light on the modem is out, the mail servers report my account as inactive, et al.
:-)
The shitty thing is, I just migrated my entire family over to @home from mediaone not two months ago. Just as we're starting to return to normalcy, this happens. I'll be reconfiguring computers and informing friends and clients about YAEA (yet another email address) in short order. Bitch bitch bitch, I know, but is it too much to ask for some stable connectivity for $45/mo.?
Anyone else on Chicagoland cable feeling my pain?
Ive always wondered why @Home in the us costs so much, i mean $55us thats like $80CDN, i wouldnt pay that, i pay $42CDN and im with @Rogers and except for some minor (1 week long outage) i cant complain. except for the fact that that stupid "DMCA shutting down @Home news groups" but now i got them all back WHOOHOO!! u guys ever hear of a news group called alt.binaries.cdimages? its all ISO stuff u can download!! A W S O M E !!! thank you @Rogers!!
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Transition near St. Louis went well... Folks at Charter made sure everyone got over to charter.net with minimal pain and suffering.
I hate to say it, but after 4 months of non-service, I've decided to go back to dialup. I've had nothing but problems with both their network service, and their customer service. Today, their phone support line was still telling customers to check the website for troubleshooting problems!
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
it appears to use/call a series of VB scripts.
.vbs extnesion is associated with notepad...heheee.
There is now a little systray utility run from the startup section in the registry...I hate it when installers do that... best thing about 98se and msconfig...uncheck...done.
Not too bright, IMO, to be using VBS for this..bat file would work just as well.
I "can't/won't" run them (VB scripts), as anything with a
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
My neighbor has (had) @home service here in Oak Park IL, and he said that while they didn't get shut off last night, they are off now. Of course that was a few hours ago, if AT&T is doing some magic trick to turn people back on, I wouldn't know about it.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
When I woke up this morning at 8:00am PST, The "Cable" light on my cable modem was still lit. I could ping the default gateway, but DNS was obviously dead.
I used a previous employers DNS server but that only worked for a little while.
Now the "cable" light is dead. I imagine many other will soon see this, as they continue to disconnect equipment throughout the day. I got a phone call from a machine at AT&T, that said they expect to be back up within a week (AAAGGGHH). They will credit 2 days off my bill for every 1 day of lost service.
Luckily, I setup a little NetZero account last night. I bought the premium, only cuz I hate that advertising crap. Besides, I'll get the $9.95 back after the double credit I'm getting from AT&T.
I hate having to use this old Modulator/Demodulator, but it'll do. So far, I'm pretty impressed with the service.
My Modem's so old, it's still labeled "US Robotics".
I'm in Monterey, CA - which is considered in the Bay Area customer base. As of 6am this morning service was not working. At about noon, the cable modem lost sync.
I saw this coming when @Homo first announced bankruptcy. Why didn't AT&T see it? Out of ALL the cable companies out there AT&T is the only one that has had an network infastructure already in place.
AT&T is resting on the laurels that their customers will stay with them.. I sure hope people dont.
Also, maybe this situation will realize that CABLE INTERNET NEEDS TO BE OPEN - NOT A CLOSED INFASTRUCTRE - If i dont want to use ATT/@Home - let me use who I want!!
Sadly, this will probably never happen...
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
Any one else see the irony in the multitude of posts telling people how to get back on line?
I stole this Sig
First good thing that Charter has done for me.
I cliped this from ATT's broadband support page:
I Understand that AT&T Broadband Has Changed Downstream Speeds on the New Service. Why are You Limiting Downstream Bandwidth?
The new AT&T Broadband Internet network as been built to optimize our customers' high-speed Internet experience. This means that customers speed settings will be set at 1.5 MB downstream and 128kb upstream to ensure that all customers receive an optimized broadband experience. These speed settings are part of our continuous effort to provide customers with the fastest, most consistent broadband service at the lowest possible price. Our lightning-fast connection enhances Internet experiences through fast e-mail communication, quick access to research and surfing, a fantastic gaming experience, quick video clip and music downloads and a whole lot more. The AT&T Broadband Internet network also has been built for future advanced service offerings. We're examining tiered speeds as a future service enhancement in addition to other offerings.
If you to ma.attbroadband.com/manunsupported.html you come to page which tell you how to "Update your settings" to the new AT&T network. About halfway down the page it tell you what to change your home page to: www.xxx.com. Obviously its a porn site. I can't figure out if this is hack or if someone at AT&T is just really stupid. This page is for people running unsupported OSs, but the other howto pages have the same link.
PS - I bet all those liberals who insisted the Bushies sell all their Enron stock a year ago are fucking pissed :)
Not really, Bush may have made his money, but at least my tax dollars aren't bailing out Enron. I suspect we would be, if he still owned boatloads of stock...
0 1 - just my two bits
No We are all using silly dial-up like NetZero and wants to get back the service we have paid for.
Help fight continental drift.
I dont know if this is related or not, but Morpheus has exactly 43 users online right now, sharing 40 GB of stuff. Is that sad or what?
Laugh at stupidity: mod idiots +1 Funny.
...but speed during primetime (i.e. between 5pm-midnight Eastern) has been noticably slower than off-peak times. Between last night and 6:30am this morning, I saw a 10x increase in download speed from a well-connected server. Web browsing is slower as well, but I don't use @Home's software or proxy servers. My email is still accessible.
From what I'm reading in the news, it looks like Comcast is one of the companies still negotiating with Excite@Home. I just hope things are ironed out by early next week without service interruptions.
I'm surprised Verizon hasn't called me to solicit DSL given the state of things...
---- Politics: Kissing ass and pointing blames.
Here in New Jersey, Comcast@Home is still alive and well. I turned on the PC at about 7:30 A.M. and as of 7:06 P.M. ZoneAlarm has ony registered seven hits. As usual, almost all of them are from 24.x.x.x IPs. Of the seven, two were from the 24.0.0.203 police making sure that I'm not running an illicit NNTP server on their network.
I think that there's a lesson or something in there somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is...
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn...
Statically configured
Unable to traceroute completely out
Switching DNS servers ineffective
Switched to DHCP, received a lease, worked instantly.
DNS Searchorder added "ga.attbroadband.com"
IP Address (and gateway) now on a different subnet
2 different DNS servers received also.
So if you have a static address, try requesting a DHCP lease. (AT&T hasn't contacted us about this one way or the other yet
Happy happy. Now we see how long this lasts...
--- Mercutio was right.
Remember that Excite@Home is not an entity representing stockholders anymore, as it was before it filed for bankruptcy, but is being controlled by those who Excite@Home owes money to. Considering that ATT owns like a third of Excite@Home it would not have made sense otherwise.
You are all aware that Excite@Home was just bought at pennies on the dollar by Microsoft? This is the first strike in a corporate warfare between AT&T and the Redmond giant. Did you notice how the article quotes a Microsoft employee (from Sammamish, Washington) who blames AT&T for service being cut off --and threatens a lawsuit, when it was actually Microsoft that pulled the plug?
Microsoft's ultimate target is AOL/Time Warner, but they need the broadband infrastructure that AT&T has before they take on AOL. They've already got Qwest, and are forcing virtually all DSL subscribers west of the Mississippi (outside California) to use a proprietary MSN and sign up for Passport. Expect Real Networks to fall soon too, unless they ally with AOL.
If you are in one of those two states, you will notice that your cable modem is still synch'ed up, and that any site you try and reach will take you to this AT&T page:
http://transition-aid.attbi.com/attbi_welcome_pag
This is because you are using the OLD @home nameservers, which AT&T has replaced to resolve ALL DNS lookups to their migration help site.
The fix is as simple as it reads in the Manually Configuring Unsupported Operating Systems page
1. Fire up a dhcp client. In my case, all I needed to issue was the command:
- $ dhcpcd eth1
2. Check your DNS servers (/etc/resolv.conf) and remove any of the old @home servers. The new IPs I got were:-
204.127.198.4
3. If you have any machines inside a NAT network, you need to update their DNS server lists as well (unless your gateway is set as the DNS)63.240.76.4
4. Change your outgoing SMTP server to mail.attbi.com instead of the *.home.com host.
And that should do it! I was actually surprised how easy it was to get back online after they made the changes. I was dreading bringing out the old 56k modem again.
Lets home the remaining states get their access back soon as well...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am diligently monitoring /. for the dreaded news that @Home and Cox, my cable modem provider, have discontinued negotiations and I have lost service...
Which news servers are you using? The one I used in Toronto area still does not carry those banned binaries news group :-(
Simply put... there's no such thing as an absolute value.
The Canadian dollar is worth less? Well, yes. But the average canadian salary is ALSO less, and the cost of living is different.
In the US, you have 10x the population, and enough people who can afford those higher prices.
Comparing $ to $ is not valid.. you have to look at the overall picture. Yes, equipemt cost more if you break it down per cusotmer, because they make less of each customer.. but that's about it. Plus, you have to take into account the simpler telecom infrastructure.. I suspect we have less taxes and less beurocracy.
Welcome manders1 ...
f ro m=chat
Connecting to server. Please wait...
Connected to athchat02.broadband.att.com
Sat, December 01 2001 12:11PM Mountain Standard Time
https://help.broadband.att.com/index.jsp?pushed
Hello! Welcome to AT&T @Home's Online Customer Support Center. Your session ID # is 1479181.
We apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience. A message from a customer care specialist should appear in the chat window shortly.
To quickly find answers to questions you may have about your AT&T@Home service, check out our Fast Answers to Questions section above.
To view any possible service interruptions in your area and to access other timesaving tools, click on the Service Tools section on the left navigation panel above.
In-Angela Stone has joined this session!
You say: Hello
In-Angela Stone says: Thank you for contacting AT&TBroadband Internet.My name is Angela; I understand you are having issue with connectivity.I would be glad to assist you with the same.
You say: I'd like to discontinue my service
In-Angela Stone says: In order to assist you with this, may I please have your first and last name, telephone number, complete home address, primary login,
and personal access code?
You say: Michael Anderson
You say: (xxx) xxx-xxxx
You say: 123 somewhere Circle, San Ramon ca 94583
You say: I dont "log in" to @Home
You say: I believe my user name is manders1
In-Angela Stone says: Thank you for the information.Please stand by for a moment.
You say: I use my own mail server etc so i've never needed my @home log in
In-Angela Stone says: May I know if you are sure you want to disconnect the services?
You say: I dont know, may you?
You say: whats your question?
In-Angela Stone says: Michael, may I know why do you want to discontinue the services?
You say: I've paid you guys probably $1500 dollars or more over the last three years or so....
You say: Now I am disconnected
You say: YES I want to discontinue my service DUH!
In-Angela Stone says: I am sincerely sorry for all the trouble this .
You say: fortunately my Telocity back up DSL service is functioning fine so that I
can 'chat' with you about being disconnected
You say: can we get on with it?
In-Angela Stone says: Due to Excite@Home's bankruptcy filing, we are transitioning your service to an AT&T network.
You say: Please disontinue my account NOW!
In-Angela Stone says: During this transition, your service will be temporarily unavailable.
You say: what am I talking to eliza here?
You say: The humor is probably lost on you
You say: please disconnect me
You say: (from the @home network)
You say: quit billing me
You say: stop my service
In-Angela Stone says: Okay Michael, kindly standby.
You say: Today is Saturday, December 01, 2001
You say: The day on which I discontinue my @Home/ATT Broadband service
You say: The day on which I quit paying $58.79 a month
You say: Thats an extrea $705.00 dollar per year for ME
In-Angela Stone says: I am sincerely sorry for all the trouble this has caused you.
You say: Boy for $705 per year you'd expect REALLY good service
You say: You don't need to apologize. It has caused me no trouble because I have a backup service
You say: I dont trust you guys
You say: It amuses me thats all
You say: ATT loses $705 not me why should I be upset?
You say: I still have service as you can see
You say: I've already told you what I want
You say: I assume you are handling it
You say: what reason is there for me to need to
You say: "hang on"
In-Angela Stone says: Michael, I have forwarded your issue to the required department.They will do the needful for you.
You say: OK fine so are we done or what?
In-Angela Stone says: I have forwarded your request , now they will do the needful Michael.
You say: also there is nothing 'needful' other than to quit billing me which will happen in any event once I inform my card company of my desires
You say: What more do you need of me?
You say: Hello?
In-Angela Stone says: Michael, as I have forwarded your request.
You say: Yes?
In-Angela Stone says: They will do the needful.
You say: Youill discontinue my service?
You say: yes?
You say: is that it?
You say: are we done?
You say: Is this a computer?
You say: I am talkin to eliza aren't I
You say: how humiliating
In-Angela Stone says: Micheal you are chatting with a humann being.
You say: prove it
You say: You still sound like eliza
In-Angela Stone says: Michael, yes they will discontinue your services.
You say: Thanks, so are we done?
You say: Come on I need 'closure'
In-Angela Stone says: Yes Michael.
In-Angela Stone says: Thank you for contacting AT&TBroadband Internet, goodbye.
You say: excellent, bye
The session has en
They will have been swamped by /. users almost instantly after the story was posted. This is slashcode 2.0 - it has faster response times.....
Not necessarily. I'm pretty sure that Slashdot doesn't update the main page until a few minutes after a brand new story hits the database in order to keep ACs from rapidly reloading the homepage, trying to get first post. I'm not sure whether this is a feature of Slashcode out-of-the-box or of the customized version that Slashdot runs.
Will I retire or break 10K?
there is a bunch of dumb stuff i dont feel like typing so heres the stuff i found interesting.
Q:will i be credited?
A:yes you will automaticly recieve 2 days credit for every 1 day your service is unavailable.
#bunch of stupid shit about usernames and homepages and shit#
#bunch of stupid shit about billing saying nothing will change#
Q:will i have a stitic ip address?
A: no,you wil need to use dhcp.
Q:will my downstream speed change?
A:yes it will be limited to 1.5 MB downstrean
(methinks mabye they mean Mb)
will post more if they hand me anymore "internal document only not for external distribution" packets lol
Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom. But sharing data is the first step toward community
or
So if Excite doesn't turn their network back on VERY soon, like in the next day or so, they're toast: AT&T has the cash and resources to manage their cablemodem subscribers themselves. Once Excite@home no longer has anyone hooked up to their network, their value will drop through the floor.
In short, even though the offer they were given probably wasn't very good (it was probably really bad, actually), now that they've shut down their customers they're dead. And if I were AT&T, I'd see to it that the floor was wiped with Excite@home in retaliation for screwing over my customers.
The only variable I know of here that can affect the outcome is the rate at which cablemodem subscribers bail out and go with some other service, for those that can. Since it takes at least a couple of weeks for most DSL connections to be provisioned and configured, the only immediate competition that AT&T will lose customers to is dialup, which isn't terribly comparable. So I think AT&T is pretty safe when it comes to keeping their customers for the next couple of weeks. As long as they can transition the vast majority of their customers in that amount of time, they're safe, and that means that Excite@home has managed to fsck themselves good with this idiotic move.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I am so happy, my local provider is trying their damndest to keep us up and running, as per their latest e-mail:
F 0C 8sRW0B460ork0AF
F 0C 8sRW0B460ork0AF
/. and the rest of the web for that matter.
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=eJI
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=eJI
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.
Locally, Cox is taking over the excite network, calling it just the generic, "Cox High-Speed Internet" so hopefully I can still browse
Mo Bandwidth. Mo Problems.
I hate sigs.
I've got Cox@Home in Omaha NE and I've had no interruptions or problems so far. This is a good thing since I've only got Sprint PCS for phone service. I decided after getting a cable modem, there was no need for a regular phone line (or modem). Since I've gotten used to fast Web access for the last three years, I'd had to take a step backwards.
You can do this with 1 BIND nameserver, use allow-recursion to specify who can use it, and any zone that is configured in named.conf will work for everybody.
chris@xanadu:~$ whatis /.
/.: nothing appropriate.
Here in the East bay the lines are just dead. I have a good friend who recently signed on when Covad dropped the local service. Now @Home is dead. Back to dial-up.
-C
It went out for about an hour or two, I didn't keep exact track of time since I was playing Battle Realms. My friend called and bitched at tech support and taught them a few things.
*sighs*
@home tech support is horribly stupid.
For me, the Charter Pipeline installer didn't work. I unplugged the cable modem, then plugged it back in. Then I got the new address using DHCP and after a few minutes it worked. I switched my e-mail to:
mail server: mail.charter.net
SMTP server: smtp.charter.net
The Charter support line works worse than their installer - they hang up every time.
visi.com dns servers rule!
YES, there is a McDonald's in Hanoi Square.
images.slashdot.org, 64.28.67.57. We sould not want to be without thinkgeed would we?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I'm kinda fortunate - I've got DSL to the house too. I was playing with the idea of terminating the cable services (thus the DSL) and POOF - they did if for me ;-)
Seriously, after having DSL for a month or so, and cable for four years, the cable service speed is nominally much faster, mainly because of it's ability to peek at higher performance. The DSL has been more reliable. When you have both, at least you have near 100% up time. My only real concern now is that Covad goes the way of @home. Then I'm truly screwed....
Have you compiled your kernel today??
You obviously didn't read it. Besides, we're talking minutes between replies with me waiting. And, why the hell would she take it personal? If she doesn't like it I'd be more than happy to talk to her managers. Besides if you read the heading you would see it was not intended for you dorkus.
That's a nice thought, but I think it is all about the capitalism you hold so dear.
Apparantly the sweet spot for rolling out new services is a population of 3.5 million people. That means New Zealand, Ireland, and a couple of other countries are great testing pots for the rest of the world. Enough citizens to make it a fair test, and small enough to be controllable.
Now, the question of monopoly ...
High speed failed in England - it failed badly. British Telecom had the sweet spot of the monopoly, and it wasn't in any hurry to run DSL out to the exchanges and then set everyone up on them. It was raking in the cash with per-minute phone call charges. Why should it change? DSL isn't a very good financial proposition. And they used their monopoly to act poorly and give their customers a really bad taste. RIP broad band in the UK.
High speed went OK in New Zealand - our local monopoly Telecom was getting its heels nipped by Saturn (now TelstraSaturn), and other people like the Lloyd Group were offering DSL, iHug had their satellite, and Walker Wireless had ... wireless. Because of the way Telecom had been privatised and the legislation stopping it eing a bully in some respects (Saturn and Lloyd Group still got a hard time) they ran out DSL, and quite a few people picked it up.
New Zealand still has a shabby connections-per-hundred head of population ratio. US also has a shabby ratio too. South Korea is the best.
But why? Because South Korea embraced that.
In the US, take a look at them! Bickering over profits. Slack-bums not bothering to do the installs. And you wonder what went wrong?
It's the mindset.
And unfortunately for them the US has the wrong one.
BTW, fibre optic cables installed at exchange up the road. :-)
For those of you at work with dead DNS at home, try the following:
www.google.com 216.239.35.101, look up DNS + name of local university.
http.us.debian.org 141.213.4.21, add to /etc/apt/sources.list then run dselect as root and get task-dns-server
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Sources at Excite@Home told Dotcom Scoop that the company planned to "send a message to one of the cable companies" by switching off service to customers.
They sent a message to their customers too. "We don't give a shit about you."
Forget Microsoft, these regional monopolies on cable bandwidth really show the problems that can happen when only one company has control. I mean, these guys just don't give a shit. I mean, sure the company is totally fucked, (so nothing for customers to be loyal to if they could be) but rather than "Sorry, we screwed up, but we're going to do everything we can to keep you guys connected." they're basically saying "We screwed up, fortunately for us, you guys can all help pay the price! Despite the fact that all you did was pay us what we asked and dealt with our crappy service".
Personally, I think this is just more of the same shitty management. It's a shame that companies feel that they can be
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Mind you, since I'm on Comcast, I don't mind...
My bad.
-Legion
Actualy, my hosts file looks like this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 ads.x10.com
127.0.0.1 www.consumerinfo.com
127.0.0.1 actionsplash.com
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 www.travelzoo.com
127.0.0.1 popup.msn.com
64.113.72.34 autopr0n.com
Gaping assholes I can deal with. The ads still pop up, but they show my own home page instead. (he last entry was from a time I lost DNS service and couldn't resolve my own site. It was vhosted so using the IP in the URL wouldn't work)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It's really not fair to "report" months-old news without checking for updates:
Check out:
Here
and
here.
Covad's gonna be OK. Really.
--NBVB
You sig is a day late and a dollar short. Regards Poor sod back on dial-up
Help fight continental drift.
The best was on page 7. "If you this (on penis) and love her, she will never seperate from you."
:)
Well, either that or she'll just steal it when she does
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
While it's true that if you use the IP address you won't hit a vhosted server, that has nothing to do with the hosts file. the hosts file is just for overriding the DNS system on your own machine. And also, it wasn't the referrer HTTP header that affects VHosting, but rather the host header, (or a full URL in the http get statement).
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
IE dosn't suck If you're running windows, there's really no reason not to. I've got mozilla (and just got ns4.79) for testing, but for plain web surfing IE really is the thing to beat.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
That's funny man. I checked and not only is it a porn site, but a popup-spewing one. They managed to open some tiny window that I couldn't close (damn IE bugs) that kept spawning them, I thought I was going to have to kill IE's process.
These damn porn-site operators are the scum of the earth!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Heh
.XXX. in because he didn't know, and expected someone in marketing to fix the bug. I'd say it's probably more of a systematic failure then an individual subversion.
Actually, what I think happened was some tech or whatever put
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
And of course plain old spite.
While it's true that America has a really good infrastructure, we're also the cheapest. @home had a bad deal to start with (they only got about $16/mo/user). They just didn't charge enough money ($4 more a month/user and they'd be firmly in the black)
The fact that the connection is going down is simply spite and more bad management. They want to get more money out of att, and they're trying to force the issue. All they're really doing is making the value of the network approach zero. Instead of $300 million (30 cents on the dollar for what they paid) they're going to get jack shit. And they deserve it too.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Obviously if they really didn't want people outside they're network to use their DNS systems they would have set it up like that.
It's probably just a joke, since their IPs are so easy to remember. There could be a lot of people who's DNS servers are down using these, maybe they just wanted to 'remind' people to use other DNS servers when they could find them, without cutting them off from the 'net.
Not everyone is a humorless bastard, you know.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
(oxymoronic) AT&T Canada
Actually, AT&T stands for Atlantic telephone and telegraph, at least it did when it started. And even if it stood for 'American' it still would be able to non-ironically wire up Canada, seeing as how it's on the American continent.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well, I am one of the many that has been disconnected today. I got online by doing the following:
;-)
Bought a PCI modem from staples $49.95
Bought a magazine at Barnes & Noble for $2.95
Used the AOL CD to get connected using one of my last surviving Windows 98 computers in my house (one out of about 20 computers here)
Back on line and getting trolled in IRC for using AOL, so not much difference in the connection, but at least I am connected
now, if I could find that AOL Teens for Jesus chat room I could have some fun!
I have no choice in the matter, changing DNS does nothing for me, I am SOL, and not having any internet connection this was a fast choice to get my e-mail back up (I use my own) and AT&T owns everything around here, cable TV, cable internet, phone service, and I have no access to DSL. I'd like to thank the US government for the choices they have provided the consumer when allowing AT&T to take over so many local cable companies!
http://www.codewolf.com - Just good stuff to waste time
Covad is also in bankruptcy... just wait for all of the covad customers to go dark, and then where do you go, back to @Home?
At work, our @HOME T-1 was fine, but DNS was down. Hope that my dsl provider won't mind if I borrow the use of their server for a bit...
~Steve
you poor gets, i really feel for you. For some people (read: us) having a net connection is second only to having food, water and beer
Ok, I've been telling you guys for a couple years now that cable modem companies couldn't make money at $40 a month, that they'd break even closer to $50 a month.
Now, we have a cable modem provider charging $40 a month, and losing $6 million a week from 4 million customers.
That means they'd break even if they were taking in an extra $6 a month per subscriber. Assume 33% for income tax, it comes out to $9 more per month per subscriber.
In other words, somewhere between $46 and $49 a month, they break even...
Gee, imagine that.
Meanwhile, RoadRunner is charging around $45 to $50 a month, if you also have cable TV, which is where they make all the money, and they're not going out of business. All you @Home folks who were bragging 'cause you were paying less, and especially those of you who were bitching that $40 a month was unreasonably high, congratulations; you priced yourself back into dialup.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20011201
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
I am a Michigan Comcast@home subscriber who has been affected by the statewide DNS outage today. This isn't a complaint! I want to give Comcast@home a HUGE thank you for disabling DNS service in my state today.
Because Mom and Pop McDonalds can't figure out how to set their own DNS servers, they aren't online clogging up the tubes with eBay bids on salt and pepper shakers, forwarding the same damn racist joke emails to mailing lists, downloading pr0n, sending stupid 2MB RTF greeting card emails, and instant messaging with Kristy about how much of an asshole Brad was at the bar last night.
Thank you so much for cutting out all that crap. Today has been the fastest day since I hooked up 2 years ago. I can now reload my Slashdot user page to check my karma with great speed and justice.
Keep up the good work!
Speak truth to power.
This seems like nothing more than high-tech extortion. To top this off it seems that "our" government (or at least the judicial system) supports this behavior.
Byte me, Doughboy!!!
Question for those that have already bee transitioned to the new network: if my old hostname was c123456-a.city.state.home.com, what would my new hostname be on AT&T's network? I could probably get back online if I knew what my new IP address would be.
er...
What I mean is, check out worldnet.att.net as a dialup.
Linux friendly; see: www.wurd.com/eng/setup/dialers/linux.html "Linux and AT&T WorldNet® Service"
They also have a newsgroup: worldnet.help.software.dialers.unix-variant
$21.95 a month unlimited, 56K, re-dialers welcome.
Anyway, have some self-respect..
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
How do they get to this site to read all this sage advice?
Chicken & egg, a web site saying if you can't get online do this.
I think the customers of @home need to take a serious look at a more reliable system of internet connectivity than the TCP-IP over Excite@Home. The IP over Avian Carrier (RFC1149) may just do the trick.
OK, I'll bite. I just drove up there.
Here are some hilarious images of this classic f**cked company.
Here in the Pittsburgh area our ATT cable internet went down, around 11am, like many other cable subscribers. ATT claims it should be back for our area within 7 days. Luckily there was a LAN party tonight so I could get net access or else I would be a sad puppy. It's truly sad that this had to happen.
These guys collectively paid $785M for Bluemountain. The silly Electronic Hallmark site. It had no income to speak of and no business plan to ever make anything. These guys bought it and financed some of it via bonds.
Help fight continental drift.
When I woke up this morning I woke my PowerBook G4
to see if service was still up. The flakey AirPort wasn't on, so I went to my desktop machine to test with it. I got the page with instructions to move to the new service and made it happen. So the desktop machine was happy.
Then I went back to the PB and AirPort was up again, got the same page with instructions, but have had no luck whatsoever getting it online period. I've tried to use the base station for routing, tried plugging the PB in and not using wireless, tried everything in Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, even trying the configurator software in 9. No dice.
With @home I had bought another IP to share the connection using a hub. Now I can't even get my other machine on alone. What's going on and what could I try? The tech supports have only been able to tell me they're in the process of migrating me over, but I don't see a magical fix coming for this problem. Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.
antihero http://www.xappeal.org- Daily OS X News
Well, I mean I don't have a problem with legit advertizing, banners or whatever. But popups must die. Unforunetly my hosts hack is a bit out of date.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
To: rrcustomer.care@broadband.att.com
From: customer care
Subject: ACTION REQUIRED - AT&T Broadband Internet
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE. REPLY MESSAGES WILL
NOT BE ROUTED PROPERLY TO A CUSTOMER CARE SPECIALIST.
Dear Valued Customer,
Recently, AT&T Broadband sent you communications regarding Excite@Homes bankruptcy filing. As we stated in this communication, AT&T Broadband was taking precautionary measures to develop alternative homepage content in the event AT&T was unable to purchase the Excite@Home network.
We are sending this email to notify you that AT&Ts proposal was rejected. Therefore, AT&T Broadbands current @Home homepage content will no longer be available. In its place, we will be providing a new homepage featuring Yahoo, at http://home.attbroadband.com/. All other aspects of the service, such as email and Internet access will not be affected by the homepage content change.
If your homepage is set to home.excite.com, upon opening your browser, you will be automatically redirected to a website outlining instructions to reset your homepage.
The step-by-step instructions for supported IE browsers are listed below: 1. Open your browser 2. Go to the new homepage http://home.attbroadband.com/ 3. Click the Tools menu, then select Internet Options 4. Click Use Current 5. Click Apply and then Click Ok 6. You are ready to go with your new home page being http://home.attbroadband.com/
If you have additional questions concerning the new homepage, please view the Announcements and Updates section at http://help.broadband.att.com/.
While we realize this change may cause some inconvenience, please be assured that 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
Advance Broadband Service
"I'm not ashamed I can't function in society like I'm supposed to." - Paul Westerberg
This is standard practice in the industry, except that this "Angela" that you talked to appears to be a rather slow reader, based on your experience. Oh well, guess it's hard to hire good technical help for $8/hour!
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Lost DNS somtime between 7pm and now, but luckily I wrote down the IP for slashdot.org and some very generous people had posted some DNS servers to use... I am using verison's DNS right now, which isn't that bad considering I use Version DSL from my apartment, so in theory I am paying for its use already.
Here's the scene..The excite@home network provides access for ~4-5 million customers. ~900,000 of those are att@home customers. AT&T wants excite to go bankrupt so that they can buy Excite for a steal at 300 mil or so. AT&T does not have a broadband network of their own yet. They cannot possibly convert all their customers over to AT&T unless they buy broadband networks from someone (namely excite!). The other companies dealing with Excite are Cox, Comcast and Charter. Cox and Comcast at negociating new deals with Excite. Charter has their own broadband network (Pipeline) to convert customers over to. AT&T is playing a chicken game with Excite right now. Excite has played the latest card (bluff?) and shut off all the AT&T at home suscribers. Charter has switched all their customers over to Pipeline. I'm not sure what Cox and Comcast are doing but I do know that they are re-negociating contracts with excite right now and have treated Excite with respect. Excite has responded in kind. They have told AT&T to FSCK OFF and tried to keep the others online.
I'll be willing to bet that many customers will switch from AT&T to DSL or other competitors unless AT&T agrees to pay a reasonable amount to acquire the Excite network within the next few days.
Bottom line...AT&T is losing money fast and pissing off many customers right now. I'll bet they offer excite >450 million on monday!
This wil be interesting. I'm just glad I have charter (now Pipeline) service.
Y
no sig.
On our part of the ATT Cable network (Portland OR), all DNS pointed to the switch page. I had connectivety, but could only browse the page on how to switch over to the new system. (I still had an Excite IP, and external computers were able to get into my system for Web, FTP, TS, Mail, Etc...) I think the changeover was exceedingly smooth. They left a good window where both services were running concurently. Who could ask for more?
I tried your trick and it worked for me, but then I tried DHCP and that worked also. The catch is that you have to set your system hostname to the one provided by AT&T when you signed up. If you do not, the DHCP server will not give you an IP address.
I did this once to determine my IP address and have now gone back to static IP address.
And ofcourse the DNS servers did not work, but that is an easy fix.
I am a 2 year @home user, and I have to say that despite all the odds, they managed to get me up and running within hours of the cutover. I live in Iowa, and I can honestly say that my service has been fantastic.
According to a report on Channel 5 (KING-TV) here in Seattle, AT&T is supposed to have everybody in the Seattle area switched over to the AT&T Broadband Internet (sans @Home) by Sunday morning.
We'll see, but here's hoping.
back in October of 1997 mine was one of three Chicago suburbs selected to test Mediaone Express/Roadrunner broadband cable modems. I could not have been happier with them and it since. The tech support was 24/7 stocked with real geeks with real solutions and did not flinch when you said dirty words like "Linux" "Mac" or "Routers". I have never had that luck with any tech support anywhere, ever.
Then it happened, the great Satan AT&T bought my beloved Mediaone Express about a year ago. I knew then that I should have jumped ship. But nothing really changed except the address on the bills, so... well, why not. I stayed.
Then once day I logged on and when I opened my browser... well looky that... it was the great "non-shall-pass-until-you-obey" AT&T registration page, that I never received the info-packet that was necessary to "obey"... well then, I was f*cked, until I realized that if I went straight to the cable modem from the PC (no matter the OS) there was no such directed url... well, hmmm... it was router blocks they were attacking... pissed at me for not buying extra IP.. Still I called and swore bloody murder and though I knew I should have jumped ship...the guy on the phone (ex-mediaone mind you) got me my info, set up a proper new email addy, had all my mediaone services completely replaced with auto-responders and services that when I eventually received my "info packer" were never mentioned and then proceeded to instruct me on how to set up my programmable router to function exactly the way it was with AT&T leaving my shit alone, all without their software, their shitty IE browser, and they rest of the crap they insisted I must use to remain a customer... so I stayed.
Well now I've been bent over and raped. I never got a message, an email, a phone call, whatever. I just went to check email this morning and the "cable" light is dead, no connectivity. Nothing. Then the calls from friends in the area with the same service came in... yep. pooched. I read about the excite@home problems, but it never mentioned my area, and the truth is... I never heard of excite@home in my life. Hell AT&T@home, is like 11 months old around here. So I call, all I get is this message, "If you are calling in regards to broadband internet service, AT&T is no longer providing it"... what the fuck, then they mention a phone number they are going to be installing soon to call... heh.
I am jumping ship. forever. No more AT&T long distance, no more AT&T digital cable (about time I got me a dish) and in two phone calls I set up DSL service (I am going ameritech first because they can get me up the fastest but I hate them too, so then once I am on and happy, a leisurely switch to Earthlink DSL or whoever sucks less then ameritech). I am lucky enough that I live near major trunks and hubs and pretty much can get whatever is offered. Oh and Ameritech was kind enough to set me up with the dial up that I am using currently to post this. Thank god my G4 had a built in modem that I almost forgot about since all I have is another apple laptop with one... I haven't installed a modem in a box of mine in years. Though... all my Linux boxen are now hung out until I pick up a 3com.
My point is this, I knew AT&T was shit, have known it for a while and my complacency f@cked me in the end. I really could not care if they restore service this afternoon, or in 2-10 days. They are history, they f@cked me before and they will again, and again and again...
that is until I stop bending over for them, I encourage all of you to do the same.
I'll be the first to tell you I'm a AT&T Whore. AT&T's handeling of this is horrible. I work for the recently split off AT&T Wireless and can truly say i've never been more ashamed to be affiliated with the AT&T name.
l #d ec1-1
I'm a California baised AT&T Broadband customer and everyone in this area confirms that like me, they never received any notification (email, snail mail, phone, smoke signal) that their would be a potential outage, e-mail address changes, provider change, etc.
I spent a good 2 hours this morning trying to reach a representative to find out when my service would be back up (10 days is a big window). Every number was busy or sent me to an IVR that dumped me to a prerecorded message saying my service would be back up withen 10 days, blah, blah, blah.
I finally called and took the route for new service. It was answered withen 20 Seconds (BASTARDS!). I asked the representative that answered to help me and was read some script they give the phone monkeys, and told that their was a mailer sent out on the 12th of Novemeber and possibly due to the terrorist attacks via the mail system it could be delayed (I got my bill from them today postmarked nov 28th). I've done phone customer care and know how much it sucks, but I had to laugh at that numbskull response and ask if that was his own thought or if it was a script.... That's when he promptly told me he was terminating the call.
However when I did get backonline with a old dialup that was thankfully still active The AT&T Broadband Help site was no help at all. I check out some of the other providers and I don't understand how Rogers can give such stellar customer service via one web page.
Check out thier transistion support page....
http://www.rogershelp.com/transitionupdate.shtm
And not even be shut down yet, while AT&T who is offline can't even give it's customers basic information.
I woke up Saturday morning, try to load up Google.....but it seemed as if AT&T's DNS servers were set up to redirect all queries to http://newuser.attbi.com (as per the snail-mail letter). So, voila, I end up there, download their config utility (yea, I'm on windoze box, shoot me) and after a reboot I'm back in action. My host name is now computername.attbi.com (as opposed to computername.city.state.home.com)and my IP is 12.xxx.xxx.xxx (don't have it memorized yet; too lazy to look at winipcfg ). So, no more 24.xxx.xxx.xxx.
Everything went REAL smooth for me, others in my hood weren't so lucky. However, I gave them my DNS server IPs and they made up their own IP address and it worked. So, from the few posts I did read, it seems as though you can bypass AT&T's DNS servers until they get their act together.
-Tim
Absolutely NO one has made mention of this, but the one company that has been exempt from discontinuation of service from the Judge's ruling is Shaw Cablesystems serving western Canada. All @Home services still being used by Shaw (Content, Mail, Webspace and News) have never stopped working for this transition period. DHCP/DNS/Proxies/Provisioning is all done in-house. Gives customers more time to switch to the new services.
// marc
as of 12-2-01 at 3:30am I was moved over to attbi.com but the dns servers didnt work, neither did the news server. One thing I dont get is they have 2 different AUP's for attbi and the @home customer care couldn't tell me which one that I am going by, http://newuser.attbi.com/attbi.com.ATTB_Sub_Agr.ht ml
and
http://help.broadband.att.com/faq.jsp?content_id=1 107&category_id=34&lobid=1
the first listed AUP does not say you can not run a server but the second one says you cant.
I booted up my computer this morning, and I had been switched over already. Change worked seemlessly; I didn't have to do anything. Cool!
How, pray tell, would the slashdotter@home read the introduction on slashdot.org telling them how to resolve slashdot.org if they can't resolve slashdot.org?
Learning at some schools is like drinking from a Firehose
Even though I was only a temporary victim in the Excite@Home debacle (Mediacom claims they were cut off from @home "by mistake" -- it was only down for about 10 hours -- do I believe them? no), it occurs to me that the wrong people are making the decisions. Those of us who actually make technology work are ones who need to take charge, rather than the politicians, lawyers, and judges who seem bent only on destruction. Why do we keep letting them get away with it? It would seem to me that since Judge Thomas Carlson of the Ninth Circuit decided that consumers come last in the @Home mess, he should understand what the real effect is. He says that, "While the cessation of customers' Internet access is regrettable, it does not jeopardize public health or safety." Regrettable? I'm guessing he would find it very regrettable indeed if he didn't have internet access himself. I'm sure he and his staff depend on it as much as we do and I believe if he takes our access away, his should be removed as well, along with that of all the bondholders (apparently there is no list of them anywhere) and other vultures who have forced this issue. These days, it seems to me that there are five main enemies of technology: the RIAA, the MPAA, the telcos and cable companies who have fought open access every step of the way, publishers who think their so-called intellectual property is more important than the Constitution, and the monopolists who want to control all technology. To further their aims, they have hijacked our own government and turned it against us. Just as guilty are the members of Congress who were bought and paid for by these special interests and the members of the judiciary who consistently rule against any online rights for anyone outside these special groups. Let's track down the individuals who are leading this assault on the technology we create and our freedom to use it. How long do you think these organizations would be able to continue without the technology we make for them? If you are an ISP, I believe you should cut off these people altogether and refuse them service altogether. (Wouldn't it be ironic if the judge's service were cut off by one of the very companies in the case he just ruled on?) If you make software or web pages for these people, quit; there are other companies and organizations that do have some integrity to work for. If you're a hosting company for these people, cancel their contracts and remove their websites. "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." Let's pull the plug. It has to be done honestly and openly, but let's pull the plug.
I didn't grep the posts for this, but why not /etc/resolv.conf
just using the alternate nameserver space?
PacificRoot, e.g., provides these:
--
lookup file bind
nameserver 208.179.42.162
nameserver 204.107.129.2
-- end-of-snippet
Please don't mod me redundant. Many people browse with "newest first". Thanks.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
it would appear that 4.2.2.4 is the router. that would make more sense. steal service, as in, bandwidth. not stealing service from dns. if they were concerned with that, they might as well turn those into local domain only servers and use something else as a private nameserver with access control.
For me, AT&T user, I'm doa in Dallas. Unfortunately this type of thing is stupid especially considering how much I get charged per month for this service. Maybe I'll be *patient* and let AT&T fumble around. Frankly, AT&T should have provided us at least with access to their crappy worldnet service instead of letting me hack onto netzero and aol for a temporary work-around.
Uhhhh Let's see 1.5 million subscribers, we'll just leave them hanging on....
Frankly, I'm looking into DSL options now, so I probably won't be using AT&T in the future. But hey it's only my internet connectivity, no big deal right?
But do we all buy Excite's line that they were loosing $6m/week? Unfortuantely for me at the rates we have to pay for this, Let's see at least from AT&T's subscribers that should be $75m/gross/month. Maybe AT&T was taking too much off the top? But still that's a hunk of change.
Egads *I've got Mail* - Save me!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
It seems you were one of the lucky ones...For me, the plug was just pulled. No transition, no nothing. Excite's little way of striking at AT&T, but also screwing the customers of AT&T and generally leaving a bad taste in our mouths.
Who did what now?
DHCP set up on my Linux box (running NAT for a few other computers), and we're off and running (finally). I'm not entirely pleased that AT&T is capping customers off at 1.5Mbps, but I'll live. Anything's better than 56k.
Your "clever" insight has been mentioned approx 10 times so far.
Help fight continental drift.
we don't make enough to care about you
With this attitude you will never make nor amount to anything, Period. Think about this next time you go to McDonalds or any restaurant. If the service is bad just Enjoy it, and think "Well, that only because they do not make enough" but neither do I so lets all just live with this
Help fight continental drift.
nntp.flfrd.phub.net.cable.rogers.com
.flfrd. with .toronto. or whatever
replace the
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Just wondering if anyone has figured out if AT&T will finally converge their broadband internet with the WorldNet dial-up.
I've had their WorldNet dial-up service for years now. Mainly because I do not want to migrate email addies...and I haven't used it much in years since having a braodband connection. I'd love to have a single account though.
Any insights or thoughts on this?
I'm on a smaller non-ATT @Home affiliate in Maryland, and we're fine here. I grilled the cable losers last week as to their contingency plans, and while they indicated they had one, I was pretty sure they really didn't. Something they pointed out is that they as a cable provider deal with an entity called @Home Solutions, as opposed to subbing off Excite@Home.
Our original provider here was Kiva Networks, but they apparently chose to pull out of the area after helping the local company get the system up and running, but they were far superior to @Home, particularly in tech support. Among their last useful acts was to ensure that I got static IP (yay) when they did the conversion to the @Home address space.
Somebody mentioned the "go fill out a web support request form" when your service is down... nothing said "loser" about @Home's support more clearly than the fact that unless you are actually at a workstation in @Home's address space, you can't even visit excite.home.com, where supposedly all the subscriber-specific information is. Thus, if the cable is forked up, I can't go to work and look up reasons why. Dildos.
Turtle
---------------------------------------
Rotate the pod, please, HAL....
Yesterday I got a letter from Cox (for Cox@Home) stating they were raising my bill by $5.00 - normally, I wouldn't have cared - I know what they are providing, they don't hassle me too much about attempting to stay "static" (IP wise) while they "roll out" DHCP (hey, for some reason my FreeSCO hangs when set to use DHCP - it boots, and sits waiting for some DHCP message it never gets - anybody else run FreeSCO and know about this?). But during the wait to see if I would be dropped, it was kinda hilarious.
/. and Fark, with a few other odd ducks thrown in), in prep for editing a hosts file. Then, I set up DNS caching on my FreeSCO box (I should have done this long ago), a visited a lot of other sites. Then, I posted pleas on a couple of message lists I am on for DNS servers, and got responses. Then I waited...
Friday, I took precautions - I first pinged and got every "important" IP for sites I visit a lot (mostly
Well, everything still seems good - but that could be my DNS cache - let me google a funky site now...
Seems OK - googled for "harpoon fish", hit a site called "asianartresource" in Hong Kong - loaded up fine (hell, faster than some local online stores).
I am on Cox@Home, as I noted before - so, things are OK here in Phoenix, as of 1:00pm AZ time Sunday.
As a "just-in-case" - anyone know if it is possible to "hand modify" FreeSCO's init files to have it point to more than two DNS servers (so I can type in these extra ones posted everywhere, as a just in case)?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Judging by the shear number of Ginger-related posts on slashdot during the time of the leak, I definitely have to think that something is afoot. This is just way too obvious of a slashdot type story.
Yesterday My connection light on my cable modem to AT&T was flashing. This morning it was not.
/all in a CMD window, Mark & paste, then hooked everything back up normally. Reset the machines network settings to where they once were and entered the copied info into the router. Bango back on-line.
I simply disconnected one of my machines from my switch/router and connected it to the cable modem, turned on DHCP, Ipconfig
Too easy. I expected it to take longer for them to transition me, so I am not really disapointed. AT&T has been really reliable (except for once when a car took out a pole down the street, But still they were back up as quickly as they could be). I have had so much more downtime with Qwest (pathetic POS).
I have 5 machines being served by the connection. One for me, One for my Girl, one for the Kids, One for the Entertainment Center and The PDC/File-Print server.
I actually just had a chat with a Comcast rep at a local technology show and it looks like that if your running Comcast@Home you might be in for a significantly better ride than the other providers have partnered with.
.org and .com all seem to be taken, so its hard to say what your email address could end up being.
Comcast has been working on their own broadband cable network for a bit of time now, partly anticipating the demise of @Home as well as the issues rising out of the severe limitations that @Home put on commercial deals that Comcast wanted to pursue. Originally planned to launch in April 2002, the Comcast network, currently codenamed 'JumpStart', has been pushed forward to a potential launch January 1st 2002, assuming everything goes well. Due to the accelerated timetable there may be glitches in the initial rollout, but frankly intermittently buggy cable (assuming it will be fixed in the near future) is better than dialup in my opinion.
You will however lose your @Home email account as well as any stored messages or address book so back them up as soon as possible. Comcast will provide email services once their network is up and running. What the final name of the program I can't attest to, jumpstart.net
Obviously this is all from one source, though a Comcast representative, its best to avoid taking all this to heart until there is a final formal announcement as to their plans. I do know that Comcast@Home is up and running as of mid-day today. For how long... who is to say.
forma3
If you ask for this deal, and they want money up front, contact the California State Attorney General and file a false advertising complaint.
Get serious dude, I remember driving from Graffenwhor to Mesau in 2 and a half hours doing 90 MPH in an army van and the BMW would pass us as streaks! 4 or 5 hours to cross an european country if your only on a moped.
Europe is much more planned than US or CA you can literaly fly into a major city, walk to the bus stop, go to the train station, jump on a bus to almost anywhere. Usualy you can do it all on one ticket.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Well, like I said before, I work up today and now the DNS server I was using yesturday no longer works. Again, luckily I plugged in 4 new DNS servers and now I am fine again. I am really thinking of loading up BIND 8, the only problem is that this is my laptop, and to be honest, it will use more resourses then I have to spare right now (until I get another 128 megs of RAM)... Anyway, I have still recieved NO OFFICIAL contact from Comcast at ALL. You would think they would send me a mail message or even post a message over thier Digital Cable TV service (it supports a messaging system almost like email).
I'm on the Australian Optus @ Home and they just recently (two weeks ago) bought the Australian interest away from Excite. No down time at all.
The MyTh - I am a figment of the Imagination - [Im Probably even not here]
I live in Denver, CO.
:(
The first time I tried to use the net saturday, I determined that I still had IP connectivity (I could ping the gateway, at the least), but no DNS, as many others have reported. After spending an embarrassingly small amount of time trying to work around that, I rebooted the modem.
that = BIG MISTAKE
Because now the modem is stuck in an endless cycle of trying to get back on the network, (ie: "online" light never goes solid). dhclient successfully(?) retrieves the addy 192.168.100.11, which is what it does when the real DHCP servers aren't responding. It's been doing that since saturday, no change.
Right now I'm on campus downloading the NetZero installer
i'm on Charter @home. It went down Sat. morning about 5AM, came back up around 3PM. I got a new IP, but can still access the www/ which takes me to home.excite.com, and my @home email accounts. I can't access news though, even though I can ping it and it's there.
Speed wise, I'm peaking at about 20KB DL and 10KB UL. it's super slow compared to what it was a couple of days ago.
On the other hand certain ADSL plans here require you to run a windows program just to connect to the service. I wouldn't go making blanket statements that only go with cable if it's your only option for broadband, because many times, cable is the better choice.
What really sucks is that I just moved to Chicago in May, and the area where I am was served by Prime Cable/ExpressNet... talk about shitty service! It was *horrible*... I once had one of their *customer services* representatives tell me on the phone "Well, it's going to be down as long as it's down. Maybe you should just get another provider." Of course, thanks to protected cable monopolies I *couldn't* (RCN doesn't offer modems here for some reason).
Well, along came ATT, bought out Prime, and then my cable modem rocked, although my cable channel line-up still bites donkey dongs (no Food Network???). Now, I come home yesterday to nada... zip... and this 7-10 days B.S. when ATT **KNEW** this was coming is a joke. I'm really beginning to hate my decision to move to this city...
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun, with Coca-cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun.
Is there any precedent for something like this? I can't believe it's actually happened...in any case, I'm exceedingly pissed off that my email account has been disabled and my emails bouncing. What a nightmare for people everywhere (sysadmins of mailinglists, etc.)...
I'm using (well, WAS using) a Linksys Cable/DSL Router (with NAT). Unfortunately, my machine couldn't use DNS when behind the Linksys NAT, so I've had to (hopefully _temporarily_) go back to being hooked up directly. Very strange, and the people at AT&T broadband customer service didn't know of a fix - they said it'll hopefully be fixed, but they'd not heard of the problem.
I'm on Cox here in Hampton Roads and we're still up. My Cox is still up? *groan*
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
Plain and simple, they thought they could make up in volume, or something. They needed to charge a lot more (I think they were getting $14 per subscriber, or something idiotically small like that).
$40 a month for the kind of bandwidth most of us use on our cable modem is insanely low, and I don't how much more I can afford to pay for it, but it's been a nice ride.
mdoem was connecting when i woke up this morning. took less than i thought would! way to attbi ;)!
Just a quick note here. I've put in two calls to AT&T since this began. The first one Saturday morning, the second one this morning. I was very impressed with the courtesy with which I was treated. The lady I spoke with the first day, whose name I cannot recall (unfortunately) was obviously frazzled and had already had to deal with several irate customers. Yet she still did her best to provide me with information and was very courteous. More than that, I didn't have to wait hardly at all to get a response. Less than 10 minutes on the morning of the event. Not bad at all. She was a bit skewed on details, (i.e. maintained that linux was not going to be a "supported" platform. In her mind that meant I wouldn't be able to connect. But that's easily forgiven)
Today, Jennifer was also helpfull. She gave what info she could, and was very straight with me on how things were going. I'm sure it had been a long day for her as well yet she still was extremely courteous.
So, on that side I'm very happy. And if they hold to their estimate as it was given to me, and have everyone up in the next 7 to 10 days I think most everyone will be happy. And the more of us who reconfigure stuff ourself the faster it'll go.
However, on the downside, their AUP and TOU still really sucks. While it's been awhile since I last read it, I think it's even gotten WORSE if that can be believed. There's some really ridiculous stuff in there. And of course, there's the whole "limiting downstream speeds" thing. So they can offer tiered service later. Woo! Now I can pay more for the same level of service! What fun!
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
Some crap seems to go on.
:-(.
Even though I'm in Oregon that is supposedly transferred, I'm out of luck.
The problem is that I used to have a static IP on my UNIX box. All the automatic updates were for DHCP'd Windoze (this is why their instruction starts with "reboot"). I was not able to find an instruction for what I should do, so I think about saying "Fuck it!" and going back to friendly local provider with a 56K since I live too far from CO for DSL
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
I'm finally back up after 2 days of downtime. But, I am displeased that my bandwidth is now artificially throttled to 1.5M down :(
Maybe you do have a point. The problem is that the people that in your eyes Bitch do have a point as well. The best remedy is obviously to take our business elsewhere after politely letting the company know, but in a quasi monopoly situation like Cable access this is not always doable. Anyway, best regards and Peace
Help fight continental drift.
I've lived with a 512kbit cable modem in the uk for some time, and having a few months of ATT@Home i'm quite pissed that it's no longer working.
However i suggest you set up 'tc' on linux to shape the traffic on your linux system. I'm certainly no genius on this subject but if you have linux throttle incoming bandwidth at 1480kbit then you should be able to ensure that you constantly sit just below the limit for any given second.
My main use for tc is to shift large files from my us cable modem to my uk cable modem. I'm had it set to limit my outbound usage to my UK ip address to 112kbit, but set that traffic to be of very low priority - the net effect is that i can upload data all day long. The remaining 16kbit of outbound bandwidth is enough to leave room for all the other tcp control packets (keeps downloads fast) and whenever i upload anything else it takes priority over my bulk upload.
neat eh?
We have been successfully using Internet Connection Sharing with the @Home service for awhile. However, with the new changeover to ATTBI we can't get it to work anymore. Does anyone have any info on this? Thanks!