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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 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...
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...
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.)