| News of Corporate America, Where The Few Enjoy Lavish Lifestyles in Exchange for Low Pay for Employees and Bad Products and Services for the Public, Installment 38999: Excite@home has petitioned the Bankruptcy Court to void its Internet service contracts, effective Nov. 30, with Comcast, AT&T, and other providers of cable internet service to a total of 4 million customers (including yours truly). I just got a very lame email from Comcast giving me their backup plan "in the unlikely event" my email, webspace, and Internet service are suddenly rendered inaccessible: (1) Back up my website to CD or hard drive. (2) Set up a "temporary" ISP account with NetZero via phone modem. That's rich! Five months ago Excite@home's supercilious technicians were trying to get me to disconnect my NetZero phone connection so I could "get better service with my cable."
Make sure you have a local copy of anything you have up on their servers.
Ground control to Major Tom: are you still with us?
The transition to "Comcast High-speed Internet" has occurred and Comcast is really learning on the job. I can picture the yokels constantly on the phone with Microserfs saying, "Now, how do we do this again?" So far, no Comcast email (they paid Excite@home 160 million to keep its email in place till the end of Feb.) Getting onto the internet is as slow as dial-up, waiting for "proxy settings" to be detected. Once you're on the net, it's only a partial Net, which I find weird. I can get to Slate (Microsoft-owned) but entering the URL for Salon (frequent MS critic) yields a "file not found." Real Player (Microsoft competitor) files don't play. But I also can't access Artforum, University of Houston, Breakbeat Science, and a number of other pages I'd bookmarked. How can you have a partial net? Once you're on the net, you're on the net, right? This sucks.
Also, there have been two AP stories about the transition, and in both of them Comcast proudly claims that they're offering more services than Excite@home (neglecting to mention that customers have to change email and lose their website URLs) and boasts that their rates didn't go up in December because of the transition. Right--they went up five dollars in NOVEMBER. I don't know which is worse, their false spin or the journalists who take it at face value.
"... I also can't access Artforum, University of Houston, Breakbeat Science, and a number of other pages I'd bookmarked. How can you have a partial net? Once you're on the net, you're on the net, right? This sucks."
Sounds like AOL.
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Excite@home has petitioned the Bankruptcy Court to void its Internet service contracts, effective Nov. 30, with Comcast, AT&T, and other providers of cable internet service to a total of 4 million customers (including yours truly). I just got a very lame email from Comcast giving me their backup plan "in the unlikely event" my email, webspace, and Internet service are suddenly rendered inaccessible: (1) Back up my website to CD or hard drive. (2) Set up a "temporary" ISP account with NetZero via phone modem.
That's rich! Five months ago Excite@home's supercilious technicians were trying to get me to disconnect my NetZero phone connection so I could "get better service with my cable."
- tom moody 11-28-2001 2:34 pm
Make sure you have a local copy of anything you have up on their servers.
- jim 11-28-2001 5:55 pm [add a comment]
Ground control to Major Tom: are you still with us?
- jim 12-01-2001 5:00 pm [add a comment]
So far, thanks. See this comment to Bill's post.
- tom moody 12-01-2001 9:26 pm [add a comment]
Hey, Dave, I want part of my quarter back! AT&T's 1/4 interest in Excite@Home was obviously not a controlling interest. When Excite@home filed for bankruptcy, AT&T tried to acquire the company, but Excite@home nixed the sale. Excite@home was allowed by the Bankruptcy judge to cancel its contracts, and the only customers who lost cable internet were AT&T's customers. Excite@home is now partnering with Comcast for cable in NJ, so I'm still online.
- tom moody 12-05-2001 9:37 pm [add a comment]
sorry, i invested it all in enron.
- dave 12-05-2001 10:33 pm [add a comment]
LOL. If you invested a quarter (like you could) in Enron at it's past 52 week high ($84.87) you'd have .003004 cents right now.
Get ready to party Tom. You're ship is coming in!
- jim 12-05-2001 11:37 pm [add a comment]
I'm so ill-informed and naive. I've been wondering how Comcast, a crappy New Jersey cable company, was able to acquire AT&T's broadband division AND get up to speed on how to offer high-speed internet to its cable customers after the Excite@home bankruptcy. Well, duh. I just learned from a New York Times editorial that the Evil Bill Gates Empire owns a share of Comcast, and backed its bid for the AT&T division so it wouldn't fall into the hands of AOL Time Warner. Gates & Co probably helped Comcast with its internet upgrade package, too. Makes sense, since the Comcast browser is just a slightly tweaked Internet Explorer, and Comcast email uses Outlook. With Bush & Co. turning its back on antitrust enforcement, we're basically down to 2 mega-companies struggling for control of the internet, the way the Times sees it. Eventually it'll probably just be one. Yep, that's why terrorists hate us; we have so much freedom.
- tom moody 12-22-2001 9:53 pm [add a comment]
damn. i could have gone double or nothing on microsoft owning a share of comcast. somewhere there is an infographic that shows how megacorps are inbreeding.
- dave 12-23-2001 12:07 am [add a comment]
theyrule.net is pretty cool for your corporate inbreeding needs. Flash required. A very short intro, then you have to click on the rotating chair (captioned 'they rule') and then use the menu at the bottom left. Start with 'load map'. Pretty fun/scary.
- jim 12-23-2001 12:30 am [add a comment]
that was a great link. i ran into this today.
- dave 12-24-2001 6:44 pm [add a comment]
The transition to "Comcast High-speed Internet" has occurred and Comcast is really learning on the job. I can picture the yokels constantly on the phone with Microserfs saying, "Now, how do we do this again?" So far, no Comcast email (they paid Excite@home 160 million to keep its email in place till the end of Feb.) Getting onto the internet is as slow as dial-up, waiting for "proxy settings" to be detected. Once you're on the net, it's only a partial Net, which I find weird. I can get to Slate (Microsoft-owned) but entering the URL for Salon (frequent MS critic) yields a "file not found." Real Player (Microsoft competitor) files don't play. But I also can't access Artforum, University of Houston, Breakbeat Science, and a number of other pages I'd bookmarked. How can you have a partial net? Once you're on the net, you're on the net, right? This sucks.
Also, there have been two AP stories about the transition, and in both of them Comcast proudly claims that they're offering more services than Excite@home (neglecting to mention that customers have to change email and lose their website URLs) and boasts that their rates didn't go up in December because of the transition. Right--they went up five dollars in NOVEMBER. I don't know which is worse, their false spin or the journalists who take it at face value.
- tom moody 1-01-2002 8:08 pm [add a comment]
"... I also can't access Artforum, University of Houston, Breakbeat Science, and a number of other pages I'd bookmarked. How can you have a partial net? Once you're on the net, you're on the net, right? This sucks."
Sounds like AOL.
- steve 1-02-2002 1:18 am [add a comment]