Starband Files for Chapter 11

PalmKiller writes "Well it looks like Starband is going into chapter 11. I got the email a few days ago. And just when I got CYGWIN with squid proxy working beautifully. With winproxy I rarely got any thoughput on my clients (20-50KBytes/sec or 160-360Kbits/sec), on squid I finally am getting 80-95KBytes/sec (640-760Kbits/sec continuously) and some faster bursts. Well, I guess I will ride her till she falls over and dies." Looks like Echostar's tactics have been successful. And we just did an article a few weeks ago on Starband's service, where most commenters weren't very happy.

Comments

Users

[hoowee]

More info on the Starband User's experience available here

Adelphia

[scott1853]

I'm sure Adelphia Cable is next. They just got delisted from Nasdaq last week and are apparently involved in a little Enron mimmicking. Something like 2 billion worth of debt was kept off the books. I don't have the links handy but just lookup Adelphia Trouble in Google and I'm sure you'll find a hundred articles.

Re:Adelphia

[ender81b]

Links:

Adelphia postpones quarterly report due to 'accounting discrepancies'

More on accounting problems (google cache)

Adelphia selling off assets (google cache)

Absolutely ridiculous. All these telecoms going bye-bye. Where the fsck did the people who ran these business get their degrees? I mean, for god's sake, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if your company is 2 billion in debt maybe you shouldn't pay like 50 million to liscense a stadium (titan's adelphia stadium). Or perhaps you shouldn't get those $100,000 sun boxen. Always a favourite of mine - listening to all this super expensive brand-new equipment these companies have. Ebay anyone?

It just boggles my mind that somehow these morons got put in charge of a company like this. Take starband - why in god's name would you ban something like P2P filesharing programs? These programs are like the #1 reason people (Especially younger people) want to get broadband - but you filter them out. Great business strategy. Gee, I wonder why you are going bankrupt?

It just pisses me off that these morons who ran the company will get to live off of 'only 50 million' like that b*tch from Enron while 1,000 or more employees will have to try and have to scrape together a living. Argggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

</RANT<

Re:Adelphia

[GigsVT]

P2P isn't banned, it just doesn't work very well. OpenNap servers work well though.

It has to do with upstream bandwidth only being about 64kbits/sec. You can't do P2P very well with such a limited upstream.

You get a full, uncensored, unlimited, usenet feed though, and to me, that more than makes up for it.

Starband is not something to get if you want to do any serving or uploading. It is primarily a download-only broadband solution, just like all other consumer satellite products. The advantage is that Starband doesn't tie up your phoneline for the upstream like others do.

Chapter 11

[zerocool^]

Chapter 11 is NOT going out of business.

Chapter 11 is filing for protection from creditors during restructuring.
Doesn't mean it's not headed that way, just that it's not there yet.

~Will

So what is left for rural areas?

[SlashChick]

Having grown up in a rural area, and having friends and parents who still live in an area that just got 56K phone lines, this issue is important.

I can remember back in the day when AOL and other ISPs promised 98-99% local number coverage, and we were still in that other 1%. We didn't have local dial-up until 1996, when the local pharmacist (!) and his wife set up a T1 and modem pool out of their garage.

My question is: what is going to happen to these communities? With the FCC pushing toward one DSL provider and one cable provider per town, this is going to merit absolute disaster in a town that Verizon doesn't care about and where there practically isn't a cable company (the cable company went out of business three times in three years; everyone gave up and got satellite.)

I sense a real impending disaster that could perhaps be averted by something like fixed wireless. Are there feasibility studies on the 'Net (cost analyses, etc.) that show the costs of putting in a fixed wireless or other broadband setup? I've seen the case studies, many of which are posted on Slashdot. However, they fail to touch in the bigger problem, which is that this applies to 20% of the country.

If we want people to have broadband, someone is going to have to come up with a plan to offer it over large service areas over something that is not a phone or a cable line. Do we have answers yet? What is on the horizon?

Re:So what is left for rural areas?

[ender81b]

Well they could do what these people did. In all honesty, setting up an internet CO-Op seems to be the most likely way for people in rural areas to get broadband.

Remember only because of the Rural Electrification act of 1923(?) did rural areas get electrict/telephones. A report from the DOE (deparment of Energy) that I read (can't find the link, of course) said that the total cost of wiring all those places took around 30-40 years to pay off. The telecoms make very, very little from rural areas, and in many cases lose money, so they tend to not care about them.

So either build your own or press the gov't to make some sort of law requiring the telco's to provide broadband.

Re:So what is left for rural areas?

[shepd]

>I don't mean this to flame, but why it is so critical for rural areas to have broadband internet.

Do you want to vote online?

Not until everyone can at a reasonable pace (most rural communities connect at 9600 baud - 21.6kbps -- absolutely useless for the modern internet).

Would you like to get rid of your telephone and only use your broadband connection?

Not until everyone one you would ever need to call has access to broadband.

>They already mostly have 56K dialup

As a rural resident, I can tell you that you've been lied to. Most of us are connecting at rates barely faster than a 14.4k modem, and most of us have enough line noise that getting a 24/7 connection is next to impossible.

Of course, if you're still on a party line (pretty much only found in rural areas now) getting on the internet would be a tag-team sport.

>Why do they have a right to broadband

I dunno, maybe because most of your food was produced by these people?

If you continue to treat rural folk as a second class, you can stop expecting first class eats. I mean, it goes with the territory. The more 3rd world countries surpass rural areas for access to amenities, the more likely your food's going to taste like its come from the third world!

And yes, I've heard from at least one local farmer who's pissed that he can't get broadband for his milk farm business. I don't know how he'd use it, though, so don't ask (I'm one of those SUV driving people who you'd rather not see spending any money in your city).

>except for the situation in which people and companies move to these rural areas specifically to save on taxes and land costs, while whining about the lack of services.

Most rural people who do this are willing to pay extra for extra services. I, for example, am paying $150 CDN a month for always-on high-speed internet. I would humbly suggest that your taxes fund $1, maybe $2 a month of your high-speed internet.

If anything, we pay more, and often are willing to pay more.

>They then of course proceed to create excess traffic and pollute our cities as they drive the 50 miles into the city in their SUVs to see a movie.

That's ok. Considering that the bulk of wealth (at least in my town) comes from people living outside of the downtown areas (where the city is most built up, and where DSL is everywhere), we'll just stop putting money into your city. How long do you think that theater will last when no one is buying the $5 cokes?

>I have yet to see any compelling need for universal broadband.

With ubiquity comes application.

If you can trust that anyone you sell a product has access to broadband, you'll build it in.

You are the reason why its taken over a decade after the introduction of broadband before there's been any real interest in broadband online console gaming.

>If someone can figure how to make a profit on wireless, that would be better.

They're trying, but unfortunately the equipment costs, and monthly service fees are not something that even people with money are willing to pay.

>They often can't have a fire station within a 1/2 mile

We do. Many, if not most, rural communities do. Without our volunteer fire department I have no clue what farmers would do when their barns and silos set on fire, not to mention the many times they save idiots from the city when they cause a crashe by driving 20 km/h on an 80 km/h.

>and they are generally not going to be within the limitation of a DSL line.

'Tis true, tis true. Ma Bell has made some very poor choices when building exchanges out in the country, and when the city expands into the country, they often have to pay dearly for it.

>Stop Whining

Sure, but don't expect a lot of home stereo MP3 players to have broadband jacks, and don't expect to be able to phone a lot of people with your new toy broadband phone, or easily watch movies online, or many of the other things that people with broadband want to do until everyone can get it.

We're whining because many of us are willing to pay almost 5 times what you pay for broadband, but somehow companies think even that won't make them money.

BTW: I'd suggest that us rural people are why North America has been stuck with such a pathetic cell phone system (CDMA is good to 5x the distance as GSM). I'd enjoy it if we can keep people like you, who consider us a second class, from getting their hands on broadband enabled devices in the same way. >:-D

TTYL, and remember, ubiquity is what got Microsoft where it is today, and its why Linux is having such a tough time in the market.

Re:OK.

[bbk]

althought the parent is most likely a troll...

Starband is a satellite ISP.

Squid is a proxy cache server, for HTTP, FTP and some other protocols. http://www.squid-cache.org/ . It's quite flexible, and is great for reducing outgoing web traffic on a network, which speeds up web browsing - I've seen a 40% reduction in bandwidth used for web surfing at my work by using squid.

And for the other buzzwords, wingate is a windows based proxy program, and cygwin is a unix environment for windows, which allows unix programs to run unchanged on NT kernel based versions of windows.

BBK

Slashdot: antinews for nerds, nothing else matters

[babbage]

Guys, first rule of journalism (and for that matter, of getting an "A" on any paper you had to write after, say, the 4th grade): make sure you cover

• who
• what
• where
• when
• [for bonus points] how & why

Before reading this, I had no idea who Starband was, what they did, where I might have known them from, etc. After reading it ...I still don't know, but I know that they're out of money and that it messes up some guy's Cygwin/Squid setup. But I don't *care* about some guy's Cygwin/Squid setup. If you want to convince the reader that this is important, maybe it would make more sense to mention, I dunno, who the fuck Starband is and why the hell it would matter to anyone if they're broke.

And to think I once saw Slashdot as journalism's great shining democratic hope. Oh the disappointment of reality.... :/

About damn time

[GigsVT]

2002-06-02 12:46:12 Starband files Chapter 11 (articles,news)(rejected)

News for nerds, stuff that's at least two weeks old.

What I first thought it said

[reschly]

and would have also made me a lot happier:

Starbucks files for chapter 11.

Re:Those crazy creditors!

[GigsVT]

Major Shareholders:

EchoStar: Entered into marketing agreement with Starband and owns 30% of stock. Failed to perform on marketing agreement (which was to sell starband bundled with Dish Network collect the payments for a while, and then turn over the accounts to Starband in Feburary). Their failure to perform on this agreement has driven Starband into bandruptcy, because Starband does not know who to bill for their service, and thus, has basically zero revenue.

Echostar wants to kill Starband, because they are trying to buy Hughes, who owns DirectTV and has their own Satellite Internet product, which would make Echostar a lot more money than their arrangement with Starband does.

Echostar held several board seats at Starband, until they got interested in buying Hughes.

Other major shareholders:
Gilat - Provides the satellite network and services. Don't know if there is any sleezy goings on here.

Microsoft - Apparently pressured Starband into not allowing open source developers access to the protocols needed to build anything other than a Windows client for Starband. Starband is very Linux friendly, they even will provide the software you need to do Internet connection sharing, so that you can use Starband with non-MS computers, but they refuse to release the specs, for suspicious reasons.

Starband has nothing to lose by ditching the scum that makes up it's major shareholders.

Re:Damn it all :(

[GigsVT]

You could do it the legal way and get a Starband installer cert, it's not hard, and it will make sure you don't blow away satellite TV for the whole eastern seaboard. Some guy with an RV got a starband installer cert for that same reason.

As a side note, you can still do all this if you are so inclined. They are still selling Starband, and this message is being posted from it.

Re:Gee! EchoStar is evil!

[GigsVT]

What the fuck.

You didn't read the article, and you really don't know anything about this whole thing, do you?

Echostar is a major stockholder in Starband, and they comitted fraud by entering into an agreement with Starband, and then backing out after they got what they could.

The Echostar agreement was that Echostar would sell starband bundled with Dish network packages, and then in Febuary, they were supposed to turn the accounts over the Starband, so that Starband could actually get some revenue. They never turned the accounts over, because they are interested in buying Hughes, which will come with its own satellite Internet, free from pesky things like having to compensate someone you were in a contract with.

Starband filed a suit against Echostar, but when they failed to get an injunctive order to get the accounts, they withdrew the suit. Starband was fucked over by Echostar through deception and fraud. Objectivism does not support fraud and deception, so your drivel is totally baseless.

Don't worry

[mangu]

...it will make sure you don't blow away satellite TV for the whole eastern seaboard

You are sending a 1W signal from a 90cm dish. TV goes at 100W from a 9 meter antenna, so your signal will be 40 dB below theirs. But you won't be able to get it right without their cooperation, it takes a certain amount of interaction with their control center to get the antenna aligned. Even with an installer cert, they'd probably charge you an installation fee every time you moved.

Here's the catch: the antenna must be small, to reduce the cost and make it easier to transport and install. At the same time, radiated power must be low enough to comply with regulations. The consequence is that the EIRP (equivalent isotropic radiated power) received by the satellite is at the very edge of what's detectable. The procedure seems easy because it's mostly automated, but you can't do it by yourself. I know all this because I work for a company that sells exactly the same service as Starband, outside the USA.

Re:Slashdot: antinews for nerds, nothing else matt

[zulux]

called "hyperlinks" and take you to other places on the "internet"


I have the internet in my hard-drive under the desk - sometimes though, it disappears and clicking on the "e" doesen't work. Sometimes, though, clicking on the "N" works, and the internet works.

Gotta go - the paperclip is helping me write a letter.

Re:Ownership Question

[schnell]

Gilat is a VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal, e.g. small satellite dish) hardware manufacturer that owned a large chunk of Starband. However, even though they retain a smaller stake in it, they recently wrote off all of their investment in the company, saying they didn't expect to get any of it back.

Echostar is the company behind Dish Network, and they had bought into Starband (majority ownership?) and planned to use it for their own residential satellite Internet service. Recently, though, Echostar decided it wanted to buy ("merge with") satellite biggie Hughes Electronics (operator of DirecTV).

Knowing that Echostar would face some regulatory hurdles over the consolidation, Echostar dropped Starband (claiming something or other was wrong with it) and then complained to the regulatory overseers that rural folks wouldn't be able to get Internet access unless their merger with Hughes was approved. I think I heard that Echostar recently took its reps off Starband's board, since they didn't seem to be too welcome anymore.

At no time, I think, were Gilat and Echostar really "partners" - they just both owned parts of Starband.