I’m on @Home, which is bankrupt. I’ve just gotten a more-or-less useless e-mail from AT&T saying that they’re trying to buy @Home. It says, in part:
“While we realize these potential changes may cause some inconvenience, please be assured that we are doing everything possible to avoid any service disruptions. However, in the event the service is disrupted during a migration, you will receive a credit for those days of interrupted service.”
I can’t find out anything past that, beyond the fact that everything happens on Dec. 1. and, according to the customer support people, there may be “minor disruptions in service”. Pressing for details about how, exactly they defined “minor disruptions”, was like trying to catch sand. (I don’t blame the CSR, they probably knew less than I did. It sucks to be a CSR.)
Soooo, if I’m not around as much for a little while, that’s why.
Just didn’t want anyone to worry.
Fenris
(Plus, given Murphy’s law, since I’ve posted this, everything’ll go perfectly smoothly, since it would make me look like an idiot if there’s no problem )
Apparently @Home is dead everywhere. It’s corpse is being eaten up by various other companies. In my area it’s AT&T. In other areas something called “Comcast” has grabbed the leftover network.
If you want the bleakest possible picture (and these guys are professional gripers and pessimists so expect the worst, worst, WORST-case scenarios), fire up your newsreader and go to athome.discussion-athomesvc. But keep in mind that it most likely won’t be as bad as they’re saying.
You have to use your @home account to get to this group…it can’t be accessed through Google, say.
If you are one of the lucky ones, (I think one is lucky) Adelphia is switching over to PowerLink tomorrow during the day.
They had this in the works for months but I think this decision that is about to come down pushed up the date of transfer.
I don’t know what other cable systems are switching but Adelphia is one of them. Thankfully, because I just set my dad up on cable broadband last month. I knew there would be something going on with @home but they reassured me that they would have the switch done within a month and regardless of @home’s potential demise, they would would not have service interupption.
They’ve been slowly sinking into the icy depths since late September, when they officially filed for bankruptcy. Everybody in the DC area, save Fairfax County (fortunately for me) gets cable internet service from them via Comcast. My county–save for Reston which is serviced, unfortunately, by Comcast – is wired by Cox, which would be bad news except we were legacy connected by Road Runner.
I have Comcast (it’s also our cable company) and the email address (which I have yet to use) is @home. I hadn’t heard a thing about any potential problems, so I will just (no doubt naively) assume all is well.
Right now, I’m more worried about finding some inexpensive way for Mr. Legend to access the internet when he’s out of town. Comcast wants 15 cents a minute plus a monthly fee for their dialup, and I suspect we can do better with one of the cheapo services, assuming they’re at all reliable. We’ve kept our local dial-up ISP and he’s using a phone card to access it right now, but that’s slow and the numbers are often hard to get through to. I’d appreciate any ideas.
Thanks Jab, but if I lose my access, it’ll only be for a “little while” (plus I can post occasionally from work). If worst comes to worst, I’ll get DSL or something. I won’t be gone for good, not by a long shot! I’d guess a couple o’ weeks, worst case scenario.
We also have @home, for both some personal and our business, so this could really suck. We are in SoCal, and I don’t remember who might try and take over here.
I know my friend Sheila in Winnipeg just emailed me yesterday that she has switched in anticipation of @home going into the tank permanently.
Of course, at home we can’t even get cable modems, let alone DSL or anything cool. We are on an ugly dial-up with earthlink, who bought the guy who bought the guy who bought the guy… well, you know how it is.
[continuing the hijack]
Something like a quarter of @Home’s members were here in Canada, and the three big cable companies that were providing service have already transitioned us off the home.com network. Kind of a pain, because I had to change from “The Wave” (a joint venture between two cable companies) to @Home several years ago when my cable company joined the @Home network, and now I have to change back.
[/continuing the hijack]
Let’s hope you don’t get shafted, Fenris. If you’re anything like me, you’ll go through withdrawal.
Well, Fenris, it’s a good thing we Comcast users have you to let us know what’s going on with our cable internet. The newspaper this morning had a story about how all Comcast internet customers in Albuquerque (over 14,000 of us) may lose service soon.
It’s interesting that they couldn’t find the time at any point in the last three months to give us a heads-up. I don’t know if DSL is available in my area because Qwest never returned the three calls I made in July inquiring about it. I’m not very optimistic about the odds of their returning today’s call.
Satellite is looking better and better, despite the high cost.
Well, Fenris, it’s a good thing we Comcast users have you to let us know what’s going on with our cable internet. The newspaper this morning had a story about how all Comcast internet customers in Albuquerque (over 14,000 of us) may lose service soon.
It’s interesting that they couldn’t find the time at any point in the last three months to give us a heads-up. I don’t know if DSL is available in my area because Qwest never returned the three calls I made in July inquiring about it. I’m not very optimistic about the odds of their returning today’s call.
Satellite is looking better and better, despite the high cost.
Me too, Fenris. Charter Communications sent me a message YESTERDAY saying that while they really, really, really appreciate my business, their broadband won’t be ready when @home sinks into the depths tomorrow. In fact, they don’t really know when they’ll be ready. But some sweet day…you just wait.
So I cut ties with them today and went with another (as it turns out, cheaper) provider.
I’ll still be net-less until Tuesday. I know the Teeming Millions will pine at my absence.
Ogre, I’ve got Charter, too – but they said they were stepping in to provide broadband service and (shock of all shocks) apparently have done so on time. We had to change e-mail addresses from @home to one at charter.net, but so far, so good. Have you tried the Charter website to see if they’ve got it in your area?
Of course, I haven’t been home in the past few hours, so I have no clue if everything is still working, but it was when I left this afternoon.
I certainly hope it stays up, though – SWBell, shikepokes that they are, won’t extend DSL to us until 2003 (if then) although we’re just 100 yards away from being in the area. :mad:
Irony of ironies, the main reason we got cable was so we could get the cable internet access – we tape the occasional program now that we didn’t use to, but we never really have time (or the inclination) to sit down and watch anything.
I guess the sole silver lining here is that if it does go belly-up and I have to go back to dialup <cringe>, at least I can go back to the ISP I had before…I could’ve stayed with them and saved the hassle of the cable crap if SWBell would JUST BRING DSL TO OUR AREA!
InternetLegend, what number are you calling that they “need to call you back?”
I called them about a week and a half ago, got through to the sales area, they qualified me for DSL on the spot. I spoke with their DSL sales line too because I didn’t want MSN, I wanted a Plain Jane approach to DSL and a way to bow out if I hated their service. I actually ended up signing up for it through their DSL customer service line.
I’ve been bugging them for 3 years about DSL and never had to have someone call me back, they know on the spot whether or not you qualify.
I’m not to be signed up until December 6th (we’ll see, it is a telecomm company.)
Here are the two numbers I used to find out if I qualify for QWest DSL – 1-800-244-1111 and 1-888-641-4384 – I don’t know if they are the same for you in Phoenix or not.
I’m surprised you haven’t come up with the obvious solution - Move to Michigan and we’ll share - just think, we can use my ISP, and your faster 'puter - (would beat the hell out of using your bankrupt ISP and my slower than snot 'puter)
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