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Excite@Home & Comcast/AT&T Reach Agreement
whee writes: "Through a $160 million deal, it looks like Comcast users will have Excite@Home supplied access for at least more three months (press release). Comcast anticipates moving existing customers over to a new Comcast-owned and managed network before the new contract expires." As well, it appears that the folks who were using AT&T's brand of Excite@Home are back online - as this press release said. T: CNET also has a story on the 3-way deal.
df
The line that worries me is regarding "converting" my account to their new scheme. Sounds like a good time for them to raise prices (again) or lower services. Lets hope not.
(attached letter from comcast)
Dear Comcast @Home Customer,
I am pleased to announce that Comcast has reached an agreement with Excite@Home,
pending approval from the Bankruptcy Court, that provides you with uninterrupted
high-speed Internet service. Comcast's first priority is to provide you
with reliable and high-quality service. This agreement also will ensure
a smooth transition from your current service to an improved, all-Comcast
managed Internet service in the weeks ahead.
Comcast High-Speed Internet will provide you with the high-speed, always-on
connection you've come to enjoy. This new Comcast service also will offer
improved reliability, customer support and features, such as "e-mail from
anywhere" with web-based e-mail and an innovative storage solution for
MP3s and photos.
We will provide you with notification and instructions on how to convert
your account to Comcast High-Speed Internet before we introduce service
in your area. In addition, Comcast will continue to provide you with regular
updates on our toll-free hotline at 1-888-433-6963 and on our website at
http://www.comcastonline.com/info.htm.
Having this agreement in place is an important piece to ensuring a smooth
transition to Comcast High-Speed Internet. We appreciate your loyalty
as a customer and apologize for any inconvenience you have been caused
in the last week. We will continue to aggressively strive to provide you
the best high-speed Internet service and support possible. Thank you for
choosing Comcast.
Sincerely,
David Juliano
Senior Vice President, Comcast Online Communications
e x p e c t d e l a y . c o m
I'm noticing >500ms ping times to a local router beyond my cable box - a symptom that I've seen happen before they disable modems. Upon calling Adelphia (Carlsbad, San Diego, CA), they said that they're sutting off today.
It should be coming back online on/around Dec 16th as a new local service.
- ez
(Just FYI)
The thing is, though, with PacBell, your download speed varies GREATLY depending on how far you are from the phone company. The fastest I've seen it is 608/128 (which is what they used to guarantee as a minimum; now it's 384 minimum so they can provide service to people who are further out.)
On the other hand, cable is almost always going to be around 1.5MBps, which makes cable a better value. Plus, cable companies have the upper hand because they can provide service to more customers without having to worry about distances and "electronics" and such. You can't beat the 24-hours-or-less signup-to-surfing that AT&T has out here.
corky6921
Well, I had the same problem -- my SMC router wasn't working. I called tech support, and after an hour on hold, they asked for my computer's Mac address. I gave them the router's Mac address. Things still didn't work, so they transferred me to the "next level" of support. While on hold, I typed winipcfg in my Windows box's Run menu, and set the computer itself to release/renew it's address. Then I restarted the computer and suddenly it was working. I tried the other computers -- didn't work, like the router was busted. I restarted each computer, and they all began working. So best bet: do a "release" through your router, then reboot it, then do a release/renew on your windoze boxen, then restart every computer.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
As well, it appears that the folks who were using AT&T's brand of Excite@Home are back online
Yeah, back online through NETZERO! Do you have any idea how slow netzero is? I read that, got all excited, turned my modem back on, and then discovered that it still won't sync. Thanks for nothing! hehe
I'm just your J.R. Random letting you know how my switch from AT&T @home to ATTbi went. At around 3:30 am on Sunday my @home connection died, I know this because that is when my last minute ftp of MDK 8.1 CD 1 died. I woke up, and every site my browser pointed to was an instruction site letting me know my new configuration info, so I changed my router's information, shut off the router and my cable modem for a few seconds, and then reapplied power. Presto, 30 seconds later I was back online. No problems with any of the computers behind my router.
A few things I noticed right off the bat was that my previous @home connection gave my computer a dns entry that was static, and -could- be used to host a site, it followed the convention of hostname.city.state.home.com. But now my computer's "url" doesn't seem to make any sense, and rather than being associated with my current IP address, it links me to some control panel of sorts, however the last I checked it wasn't really complete offering a few tools, but no UI.
Secondly, I read up on AT&T's website, noting that my parents' user@home.com e-mail account would now be user@attbi.com, which is not nearly as easy to remember, or to give out, and that all mail sent to @home would not be redirected, but rather rejected. Unfortunately, any mail sent to their old account returns the following:
This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason:
HEIALMBOS.MHRIH
Isn't that helpful? I was hoping it would at least advise the sender to change the hostname of the e-mail address. Secondly, AT&T@home previously placed a 650 KB/s downstream, and 128 KB/s upstream cap on our connection. However now on attbi we have 1.5 Mb down (which after running a speedtest I found to hover around 1.1 and 1.2 Mb/s) and again 128 KB/s upstream. This is a nice change for us, although I am aware other users didn't have such a cap.
Also, @home previously offered webspace with each account, which was 10 Mb. Now it seems they have modified their service to include 60 Mb of webspace, I never used this feature before, but have activated it now in anticipation of a backup site for my regular page. As of yet their "df" command in the web-based control panel still says I have 10240 Kb free, but I'm assuming that's either a limitation of the webpanel, or they haven't upgraded the servers yet.
Additionally, their user management page is -completely- redesigned, making itself much more intuitive, and helpful, not to mention easy to use. I attempted to get an e-mail address with our @home service, but it had been taken by someone else previously, and then deleted, rendering it unusable because AT&T won't reactivate e-mail accounts after they have been deleted. However, with the switch, all the "dead" e-mail addresses are now available, and I was able to successfully activate my preferred address. On the same note, we were previously allowed 7 total fixed addresses, but now we are only allowed 5 simultaneous addresses, I say this is a good thing though, because before when you deleted an address, you didn't get credit back to create any more, but now you can "rename" a user account, so I renamed my old one, to the desired username without changing the number of e-mail's we're using. The @home service limited the password length on accounts to a maximum of 9 characters, and a minimum of 6, this was -very- limiting. The new attbi service allows the standard 8-16 character password, which is very handy.
Overall I am pleased with our change in service, and although other people have experienced DNS, and login errors, I had zero issues with the change-over, and can only hope, in my case at least, it is a permanent change. My loss of a domain is hardly earth-shattering, and as far as I know, once attbi gets stabilized, their IP's will again become semi-static like it was before. I can't speak for others, I know some people in California who once used @home and are now on juno. My transition was smooth, and my service has gone from pretty good to even better. But as they say, YMMV.
Score 1: Repetitive Information Fodder
The minus is we lost our static IP address, which means we can't let it leak through the firewall to VPN into work anymore -- now we're back to physically bypassing the firewall to work from home.
The plus -- and it's a big one -- is the new Subscriber's Agreement. Under @Home we were not allowed to run a "server" -- any server. They did not allow http or ftp or anything else. ATTBI say:
In other words, if you run an FTP server and someone downloads your files, it's your problem not theirs. In other words, they don't care! They also say:But that also means you can use dynamic DNS to associate a host hame to your dynamic IP for non-commercial purposes. Way cool -- I like that a lot!But I'm bummed at losing the static IP. And myname@Home sounded better than myname@ATTBI. I just hope that I'm not forced to switch to AOL or MSN next month.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Since a lot of you are having DNS problems, it might be a good time to switch to OpenNIC DNS servers. I did a week ago and it is very cool. You'll be able to resolve legacy DNS zones, such as .com, .net, and .org, but you'll get the cool, open zones as well.
.geek domain! Don't worry if you can't go to the .geek NIC yet, you'll have to set up the open DNS servers for your machine or network.
There is a list of public servers, but please use the tier 2 DNS servers. Find the lowest latency servers and follow the directions if you don't know how to set up DNS.
Then, if you get into it, get a
P.S.
My AT&T@Home came back up two days ago (Seattle).
Cox Press Release
r up tion.asp
http://www.cox.com/pressroom/No%20Service%20Dis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2001
COX COMMUNICATIONS ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO AVOID DISRUPTION OF COX@HOME INTERNET SERVICE
Pact Ensures Residential Cox@Home Customers and Business Customers Continue To Receive High-Speed Internet Access During Transition To New Cox-Managed Network
ATLANTA - Cox Communications, Inc. (NYSE: COX) today announced that it has reached an agreement that will allow the company's 555,000 Cox@Home customers and more than 20,000 commercial business customers to maintain Internet access through their broadband connections until the company transitions to its own high-speed network. The agreement is pending approval by Bankruptcy Court Judge Thomas E. Carlson.
Through the agreement involving Excite@Home, its creditors, and other cable companies, Excite@Home will continue to serve as Cox's supplier of high-speed Internet service while Cox rolls out its own managed network over the next few months. Under the terms of the agreement, Cox will pay $160 million to Excite@Home for three months of uninterrupted service for its Cox@Home subscribers. This amount will be in lieu of the monthly subscriber fees previously paid to Excite@Home.
Excite@Home filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September and subsequently was faced with a court ruling that threatened to disrupt high-speed Internet service for approximately 4 million residential cable customers, including those served by Cox. Some customers of Cox's commercial division, Cox Business Services, would also have been impacted. On November 30, a bankruptcy court judge approved a petition filed by Excite@Home giving it the right to terminate its service agreements and cease providing service to its cable affiliates and their customers. However, following Friday's ruling, Cox was successful in negotiating a new temporary agreement with Excite@Home so that service will continue for a brief period of time until Cox's new network is fully deployed and its Internet customers have been transitioned to a new Cox-managed service.
"We are pleased that all parties in this case reached an agreement based on the best interests of our customers," said Dallas Clement, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Development. "This agreement allows an orderly transition of Cox@Home customers to our own high-speed network without the fear of major service disruptions."
The agreement doesn't change Cox Communications' plans to transition its customers to the company's own nationwide high-speed Internet network. That transition will begin in December and will be completed, on a market-by-market basis, by March 2002.
"This agreement means we have been given time to transition our customers in an orderly fashion, without any prolonged service outages or e-mail disruptions," said Pat Esser, Executive Vice President of Operations. "Establishing our own network will give us more control over the quality and reliability of service, the ability to add new features, and allow us to be more responsive. Our new system will be based on the most advanced technology and will be supported by Cox technicians and service representatives who will monitor all aspects of the service and quickly resolve any technical issues. Ultimately, our own network will allow us to provide an improved customer experience, which will increase customer loyalty and attract new customers." Cox Communications currently offers high-speed Internet access through Excite@Home in 18 markets. In addition, Cox provides high-speed Internet access to an additional 230,000 customers under the brands RoadRunner and Cox Express. These customers also will transition to Cox High Speed Internetsm service later next year. Cox Business Services Internet customers will simultaneously transition to the Cox-managed data network.
About Cox Communications:
Cox Communications, a Fortune 500 company, serves approximately 6.2 million customers nationwide, making it the nation's fifth largest cable television company. A full-service provider of telecommunications products, Cox offers an array of services, including Cox Cable; local and long distance telephone services under the Cox Digital Telephone brand; high-speed Internet access under the brands Cox@Home, RoadRunner and Cox Express; advanced digital video programming services under the Cox Digital Cable brand; and commercial voice and data services via Cox Business Services. Cox is an investor in telecommunications companies including Sprint PCS and Excite@Home, as well as programming networks including Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel. More information about Cox Communications can be accessed on the Internet at www.cox.com.
About Cox Business Services
Cox Business Services is the commercial broadband division of Atlanta-based Cox Communications, Inc. A full-service, facilities-based provider of telecommunications solutions, Cox Business Services serves home offices; small, medium and large-sized businesses; school districts; and hospitality, government and military properties in cities across the nation. Cox offers high-speed Internet services; switched voice services and long-distance; wholesale carrier access; and dedicated voice, data and video transport services. More information about Cox can be accessed on the Internet at www.coxbusiness.com.
Remember that you are unique, just like everybody else.
2-6mbps, with compressable bursts up to 8.
I'm sorry but that is a SIGNIFICANT reduction in d/l speed I don't care how you look at it.