RSSExcite@Home Status Unclear, AT&T First to Go Dark
By David Worthington | Published December 1, 2001, 12:44 AM
UPDATED 850,000 AT&T broadband customers are the first to lose service as Excite@Home determined it would not be able to reach an agreement with the telecommunications giant. Service is limited to 86,000 subscribers in Washington and Oregon who are in the vacinity of an AT&T owned and operated backbone. Exite@Home is still in negotiations with its other cable partners. AT&T assures customers they will have service restored within 10 days. The comapny was previously in negotiations to purchase Excite's assets.
Millions flocked to cable modems with the promise of a fast, easy connection that is always on. Forty-five percent of cable modem users in the United States may suddenly find themselves regressing back to dialup this weekend following Excite@Home creditors' successful bankruptcy court petition that allows the troubled Internet provider to terminate service contracts.
Leading cable companies including AT&T, Comcast, and Cox have each been paying Excite a nominal $12 monthly access fee per user, and even agreed to an $8 price hike last month. Within a short frame of time, cable companies referred millions of customers who all passed through Excite's network infrastructure. Between August, 2000 and the new year, a million new accounts were added to the service, catapulting its consumer base from 2 to 3 million users.
Despite achieving this explosive growth, Excite's network was not fully saturated – a condition which was the basis of the service's fragile business model. Without being able to turn a profit, Excite went from being a value added partner to the bane of the cable industry.
A bulletin posted to the Excite@Home Web site read, "Once rejected, the cable companies must negotiate new agreements acceptable to the company or risk the possibility that the @Home service may be terminated." Cable providers and Excite shareholders have engaged in what amounts to a game of chicken over the pending shutdown, as creditors demand costlier access fees, and customers wait in limbo.
Individual ISPs have eyed moving forward with continguincy plans to provide customers with limited Internet dialup access until terms can be renegotiated with Excite. Customers are urged to backup Web properties, and to frequently check e-mail while it is functional. Cox is among the many providers that have already begun work to build their own backbones for Internet connectivity.
What does ol this mess mean to people like myself that are based in Canada
ol of our emails have changed
the network change mean that we may experience better download speeds????
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|I live in Renton, WA and well since this morning AT&T Broadband Internet has been working w/o a problem. Only one day a disconnect. Good thing the county made em do it.... its in their contract. More then one day of disconnect cost AT&T a lot of money around here (or so the word is). Guess I am one of the lucky 86,000 people :-).
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|Everybody hates AT&T.
http://www.134online.com
Criminal deceptive practice, consumer fraud, lies,
and exploitation of employees.
Kiss my AT&T !!!
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|Sad..so sad. I used to work for Excite@home when they were believed to be one of the great companies of the future. At&t destroyed them and ruined it for everyone. This is gonna drag for a long time. Cable Operators are going to have to hiar or retrain current staff all about the cable network systems and modem provisioning,etc and revamp their whole setup. This is such bs and will only cause more problems for all customers. Thanks At&t your such a great company, no wonder everyone hates you.
Matt
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|I can't admit either company is flawless but I hardly think AT&T is to blame. If I remember correctly @home's idea of a RCD is purchasing a super expensive slow SUN system and creating a RDC1 and RDC2 (which half the time RCD1 would fall over to RDC2 and RDc2 wouldn't not operate correctly. Throttleing your DHCP request because it cannot fullfill all request... I hated @home DHCP I setup static because it never worked right. Re-push-Re-push the config to RDC that will fix it!
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|From what I understand, AT&T walked out of negotiations. AT&T and Cox also were building their own networks, which was against contract with @Home. Comcast and Cox have yet to reach an agreement... However, they were willing to continue talks, unlike AT&T, which from what I heard is the reason for the shut off. Now, with DSL, it costs approx. $45 or more...per month... $20 goes to the content provider (Earthlink for example) and the remainder $20-$25 goes to the phone company. (For the line). The Extra $8/mo they are receiving, is what they were suppose to have been paying. There's more here than meets the eye... I tend to side the the dotcomscoop.com peeps.. It's very interesting what information they have provided.
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|Hmm... http://www.home.com/alwayson.html says "Never feel dissconnected again." Their signup page works too.
I guess they are too poor to update their webpage. =]
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|Anyone know Cogeco dropped @Home???? We were notified by mail saying that they're converting the Email server to cogeco.. but I'm not sure about the Data server?!
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|I know that Shaw in Canada already has a full network in place and has started moving all customers over from @home.
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|just been notified that Cogeco recently dropped its partnership with @home and has their own data server up.. hence, my cable lights are still on and replying this message as we speak :0)
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|damn does this mean all the warez ftp sites i go to on @home users computers will be down? bugger!
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|Does this mean my RealPlayer will not display that 'net congestion' message as much :-)?
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|Comcast's alternative to the loss of the @Home network is so lame that their management deserves a collective 'dope-slap". To wit, their interim 'solution' is to pack off their current broadband subsribers off to NetZero and 56KBps. Not exactly what we all contracted with them for, huh? Well - after sending an interesting email to @Home's 'abuse' department (where I told them how abusive this move of theirs is) - I told all my friends not to expect an email from me until I get on my new RCN account.
So - FAH on @Home AND Comcast both!!! May they both ROT!!!
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|Itlooks like Comcast has kept it going
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|Well, it looks as tho Michigan has gone down for the count. According to the phone messages at the local Comcast office, "we are experiencing difficulties with the DHCP server" LMAO! Yeah, when there isn't one to access, I guess you are having problems. Back to the ole faithful dialup until some business here decides to provide DSL in my area. It was good while it lasted.
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|I used to work for Comcast@Home in Nashville and still have friends at this location. currently they are letting nodes become saturated because of lack of support both locally and in California. I have seen my download and upload speeds decrease in the last 6 months. While I appreciate all of the company's efforts to adopt their own networks, I believe that the Cable companies should stick to what works best for them - Cable, not networks. The revenue that needs to be generated in order for them to continue to maintain any such network will never be generated because they have not been able to make guarantees with regards to their service. I am switching to DSL for just this reason, giving it a year or so. I have also considered moving to a dedicated line, not a fiscally responsible option for some cable users. Good Luck to everyone but I dont anticipate a resolution we can all live with.
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|Seeing as how the cable's were supposed to drop Dec 1, at 12am, this story is a tad (44m) late.
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|Actually 12pm Pacific Time (after all, isn't that where @Home is based out of?). So that would be 3am Eastern Time.
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|coxatwork is still up in my town but I have residential friends who are down although my athome connection is still up/ you reckon it is because I also have a business account.
someone was saying they would be liable if they let businesses go down who have running telnet tabs etc. to court records and such. I would agree I think.
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|On the last post, I am pretty sure a bankruptcy protection ruling would supercede any threat of a lawsuit regarding business access, not to mention the leeway most ISP's give themselves with the contracts you sign/agree to upon usage of their service.
Just my 3 cents.
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|correct my friend as far as excite is concerned but cox's agreement contract for some is like 5 years standing at one cost which clearly states it is fixed rate. I would simply cancel my telnet subscription "100 bucks a month"but not likley due to the fact that cox ever since I beta tested here 2 years ago has had cox managed network in place and working just like at&t. I wouldnt be suprised at all after recievership proceedings if there wasnt more judicial proceedings to keep one or another from monopoly along with possible investigation as to who and whether it was legal started all this and since they had their own competition going gold. Is their enough proof somewhere to show intention of potential criminal acts in order to make room for their own expansion? I guess we will have to stay tuned and see if it's worth the merit.
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|I guess it sold news by now. Been taking sunday off but heres the poop link . sounds interesting
http://dailynews.yahoo.c...exciteathome_dc_12.html
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|also this could give away where I got the poop link and expose me as a gamer but here is a relaxation link. dont know how long it will be up but enjoy.
http://createafart.com/
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