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Most @Home Customers Still Connected -- For Now
Mansing writes: "There may be hope after all, according to this update from the Washington Post" In short, a reprieve for many @Home customers, with negotiations ongoing between @Home and the major cable companies with which its service is offered -- watch for updates here. (AT&T broadband customers, though, will be moving to another service -- AT&T dropped out of the negotiations to keep @Home for their customers, and say that switching current customers to a new network will take about 2 weeks.)
I have 2 things to say.
First, now that it appears that each cable company will take the responsibility for providing high speed internet over its backbone, perhaps cable internet will grow faster because the ISP side will hopefully have much less of a bankruptcy fear with the TV side helping fund them.
Second, and slightly off topic, someone needs to check Slashdot's clock. It's still stuck in Eastern Daylight Time, not Eastern Standard Time. Seeing stories with a time an hour ahead is kinda confusing, considering that the same times were accurate in early October.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
1) Their support are not answering the phone
:)
Be kind, they're very busy right now. Wait a little.
2) My IP address that has been static since I signed up over a year ago has suddenly changed and it appears that static addressing in any form has gone up in smoke. This screws anyone relying on a static IP.
Wait a while. Things will settle down. My IP address has changed many times since saturday morning. If you need a static IP to run something against the AUP, maybe you need a new ISP anyways.
3) They have been playing fast and loose with the service agreement (that I signed), but instituting an AUP (that I didn't sign)that directly contradicts it.
I haven't seen anything like this. Do you have any references?
4) Their DNS service has been very erratic
It was. It's working now. I couldn't get any of the DHCP assigned DNS IP's to work. Now they do. I think they updated the DHCP well before actually turning on the DNS servers. Oh well. Get over it. If you want DSL; you can go ahead and do it. I however, as well as everyone else I know, has found the short service interupption more than acceptable.
This is not the sort of crap I want to be paying for and I am actively shopping for a replacement (I.E. DSL). I expect any other user who wants to do more than play with the latest microsoft browser will be doing the same and dumping AT&T as soon as possible
What the fsck are you talking about? You think maybe throwing in some mention of Microsoft will get you modded up or make you look cool? What do you need to do thats so goddamned important that you need a static IP? And what in the freak does a browser have to do with your ISP? That's not rhetorical.
So, yes they made some big changes. No, that's not fully exculpatory for the service interuptions. However, they've declared that it will be taken care of.
Come to think of it... there was a new AUP a while back that you had to opt-out of in writing. It's been in effect for quite a while. Maybe you should check your mail.
Moderators: If you have to look up any of the terms I've used, don't moderate me. You're probably confused. Read the Moderator Guidlines before doing anything drastic.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
What do you expect for $40.00/month? Bandwidth is expensive and there is no way around that. Might as well get used to it because you won't be getting multiple T-1s for dial-up prices.
Ummm...why do I feel like I am feeding a troll?
Oh, well, here goes:
No shit, sherlock...the point I was making, and if you had read the article and some of the other post in this topic was:
When speeds down/up go from 400K+/200K+, get capped uploads of 400K+/128K+ then to 400K+/12K-.
That quite frankly, sucks the big one.
The 128K cap was understandable...the 12K cap was fraudlent...or at the very least a deceptive practice...that "oh, we meant BITs, not BYTES"...uh, huh. (this is what I got from the home office in California).
But now, the up/down is ~ 12K'ish no matter what.
I'm just pointing it out to see if anyone else has the same/different experience.
You pointing out to me that I'm not going to get a T1's speed for 40 bucks a month is deserving of a resounding "DUH".
I'm saying: Perhaps this is why they went under (amongst other reasons) "YOU/I/WE pay the same or more $$$ for a service and get less and less as time, and now a "switchover" (more like a fuckover, IMO) to different service.
40 bucks a month for Dialup speeds? Please.
Now, please be aware that I *know* there are going to be issues such a these.
Shortly after posting my original message a friend of mine called and asked my opinion...
Well, I repeated the same subject line:
"We are not impressed, we are not amused".
Essentially I am well aware of what the "system" is capable of...and I am not getting even a tenth of a percent of that.
Put another way, sir, if your salary was reduced to 1/100 its current status...I suppose you would not mind if your boss said...well you can't expect us to pay you that well in this economy, can you?
Comprendez?
Salute,
Moose.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
What do you need to do thats so goddamned important that you need a static IP? And what in the freak does a browser have to do with your ISP? That's not rhetorical.
I can't speak for the poster above, but the reason I got always-on internet service was so that I could shell into my home computer and access my files from wherever I like, not to mention forwarding X applications over the Internet when useful/necessary. Static ip is necessary for that.
Lighten up on the attitude a little, k buddy?
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
If cable modem service goes out for my area, I fully intend on switching to DSL. www.dslreports.com shows a dsl connection in my area that is about the same speed as my cable. Of course, if I switch to dsl, then I'll probably get rid of my cable tv as well. I'm curious how many others will do something similar to this?
I had thought that AT&T made a good switch - I was only out of service for Saturday, and Sunday morning I received a recorded call that told me to "reboot my computer and launch my browser" and the AT&T Broadband Internet page would come up with instructions for the new service.
:)
Not being someone who keeps (or even installs) the standard software suite from the ISP, I set my network to use DHCP and kicked it - and got a new IP from the new DHCP server, and (once I realized I was still using the old DNS servers and reset them) everything has been fine.
There are only two problems:
1) the new service is limited to 1.5mbps (download) rather than 3mbps. This is supposedly "to ensure good quality of service for everyone."
2) my static IP is no longer static, or at least the DHCP lease says it is only good for about 5 days. I don't run public servers, but I like to be able to ssh to my box and get files if I need them.
Beyond these things, everything is back to working as normal. The added benefit is that, after using a modem for 24 hours, I appreciate having a high-bandwidth connection more than ever.
Mr. Sharumpe
-- The above comments are just my opinion. If you are going to flame me, save your time. I am fireproof.
This is true. I have two signed agreements: One with AT&T, one with @home. The AT&T agreement does not specifically exclude running servers on the service. In fact, AT&T goes so far as to tell you that you are responsible for any security issues as a result of running servers on the service. Now that @home is out of the picture, I can only assume my (signed) agreement with @home is null and void.
On another note, if you go to the help.broadband.att.com website, one of the questions prominently displayed is "Can I run a server on the network?" It appears AT&T is simply parroting what was in the original @home agreement. So in the regard, I believe the original author is correct: AT&T is playing fast and loose with the AUP.
I've also noticed AT&T doesn't appear to be scanning any ports (@home was keen on scanning port 119 about once an hour). It will be interesting to see what the new "official" AUP says about servers...
Here in Atlanta, we were told "1 to 14 days". That sounds like two weeks to me!
Via phone, and email (repeatidly)
--Xan
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
Well duh, it only took you a day to get your service back on. For some people (like us peons in the Pittsburgh area) it could take closer to ten days. Why? Well, they can't do the whole thing all at once. It's gonna take time to get the whole network up. So while in areas like Washington, Chicago, and wherever else they are working on now, there's gonna be a higher-rate of people who think AT&T did a good job. But in other places, where there are more people pissed cause it's taking them a whole week to get their cable kickin again, you're gonna have a higher-percent of irate people and people who switch to DSL.
And thats another thing, I don't get all these people saying "To heck with AT&T, I'm getting my baby-bell telco out here to get me DSL. Well guess what, it's peoplebably gonna take your Baby Bell (or whoever else does DSL in your area) alot longer to get to your house and install DSL than it will for AT&T to get your cable modem blinking again. If you're switching for "The principal of the matter", why? It isn't AT&T's fault @home went bankrupt cause they built too much network too fast.
~~DanNo man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
This entire thing is being caused because AT&T wants to buy out @Home. Even though @home is reporting a net loss, most of the loss comes from the purchasing of equipment. Once cable internet service stops growing so rapidly, @Home will be able to start paying of all their debt because they'll be making money and not paying for so much new equipment. @Home is valued at billions of dollars, yet AT&T (who bought 23% of @Home for over a billion dollars) now wants to buy out @Home for a measly $375 million. AT&T saw that since @Home is reporting a lose (in equipment, as was already stated) they could try to force @Home into bankruptcy court and then buy the entire company for less than 10% of it's value. AT&T knows that the telephone infrastructure that they own is aging and needs to be upgraded. So, rather than upgrade what they own and pay billions of dollars, they see that @Home has already built a large part of the infrastructure and is reporting a net loss. If they can manage to buy it cheap, they don't have to spend as much money. If @Home fails, the only party that profits from it is AT&T. Do we really want Ma Bell in charge again? There was a reason the telephone industry was deregulated.
My cable had gone down Saturday morning, and I was prepared to spend a couple weeks suffering through dialup access. But I woke up Monday morning to find my cable modem back in business. I had to fire up a DHCP client to get a valid address. No more static IP address for now, it looks like; I think I'll give AT&T a couple weeks to finish moving everyone else over, then get in touch with them about a static address. Or maybe not. Once I realized my static address was gone, I went and signed up with DynDNS.org and changed my DNS records so that my home machine has a CNAME pointing to its name on dyndns.org rather than an A with its old static address. Then I downloaded a dynamic DNS client (lots available for Linux and Windows and others) and set it to send an update to dyndns.org's servers whenever my address changes. My assumption is that this will allow me to keep serving up my Web pages with no more than an occasional brief glitch if my IP address changes. And the lease times are pretty long (5 days), so even those glitches should be vanishingly rare, assuming they happen at all; I'm betting I'll be able to just keep renewing my initial address indefinitely. So the only real downside to being on AT&T's network is that my downloads appear to be capped at 1.5Mbps. Boo hoo, $50/month for T1-speed downloads, don't everyone offer me a hankie at once. Still a fantastic deal, even if it's not as sweet as it was a week ago. Way to go AT&T. One mostly-satisfied customer here. (No downtime would have been better, but I had longer outages than this on my old DSL line even without the provider going bankrupt, so it'd be churlish to complain.)