Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DIRECTV Broadband Shuts Down

Posted by michael on from the fatality dept.

Phroggy writes "Effective today (Friday the 13th), DIRECTV Broadband is officially out of business. The company will remain partially operational for the next 60 to 90 days, and we will work to transition our roughly 160,000 customers to another provider. Details are still sketchy. So, anybody gonna be hiring in the Portland area in a couple months?" There's a press release about the shutdown.

5 of 444 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by craenor · · Score: 5, Funny

    For those of us who do tech support and sometimes run into DirecTV broadband issues, can I just say, yippee!

    1. Re:Well... by Froze · · Score: 5, Funny

      You work for them right? The Telocity modem/fake routers that we haev to use.. can you hitn me how to mod it so I cna use the routing capabilities? I am goign to assuem they will let me keep it. what is yoru input on this?

      My take on this post is that you need to cut back on caffiene ;-) Either that or teach you left hand to keep up with your right hand.

      --
      -- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. from the ashes by m_chan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess it may be their last post, but this operation has always been kind of a "phoenix", rising from the ashes. (Or perhaps soiling themselves with said same.)

    Here's why:
    DirecTV DSL, a subsidiary of Hughes, which is in turn owned by General Motors, was formerly known as Telocity until Hughes purchased them in July 2001.

    In my part of the country, the switch to the corporate entity Telocity occurred at about the same time as Northpoint bankruptcy forced a CLEC switch from Northpoint to Covad for some customers of Megapath. In October 2000, Megapath had purchased the assets and customer base of an ISP. Megapath kept the business customers of that ISP and spun off their residential customers to Chicago-based Telocity.

    And the name of that ISP? Formerly-St. Louis-based Phoenix Networks, founded by a guy named Peter Roberts, who evolved a one-man network integration business into a rapid-growth internet service. Of course that Phoenix should not to be confused with Phoenix the BIOS that has the legal team that is making Phoenix the superlative web browser change it's name, none of which is happening in Phoenix.

    Dizzy yet? I know I am. Hope I got at least the broad strokes right. Anyway, I'm glad I got off that Merry-Go-Round during what seemed to be a weekend-stay at MegaPath, though I supported a few friends throught the multiple changes that followed. Maybe the ride finally is coming to a stop.

  4. Re:Portland Jobs. by Lucas+Membrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    Try U-Haul, Ryder, or whoever rents out those trailers. One of my friends decided to move out of town and found that there was a shortage of trailers for rent, as they have all been rented 1-way outbound. You might get a job retrieving them or building more.