Covad SUCKS!

Steve Gibbard scg at gibbard.org
Wed Feb 28 23:31:39 UTC 2001


Wow.  A telco cut off a customer who hadn't paid their bill?  Amazing.
Also old news, if this is the case I'm thinking of.  If you find a DSL
local loop provider that works reliably, will be in business for a while,
and doesn't require its customers to pay, please let me know.  It sounds
useful.

Yes, having your DSL service cut off sucks.  I know this from experience,
as my home connection is also currently down for the same reason.
However, I think the lesson to learn from this is not that Covad sucks,
but rather that keeping mission critical systems single homed on a DSL
line to an ISP that's not paying its bills is probably a bad idea.

-Steve

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote:

> 
> This is a blind message. I don't even know if it's getting out of my mail
> hub. Theoretically, it should. You won't be able to reply. I can route out,
> but nothing can get back in.
> 
> Some of you may remember a poster of this huge eagle stooping on a mouse.
> The mouse was calmly standing, facing the eagle, flipping it the bird. The
> title was "Defiance". Covad is the eagle, MHSC is the mouse, and this
> message is the bird.
> 
> MHSC has been down since 7Feb01 and Covad is the culprit. MHSC pays its
> bills, but Covad had a problem with my upstream. On Wednesday, 7Feb01, Covad
> cut off all links and feeds to my upstream. I've been down ever since.
> Everyone knows how quickly telcos turn up services, that's why co-lo centers
> have customers. Covad cut off MHSC access, without warning, without,
> compansation, and their SafetyNet program is the worst joke. I have a /24
> and the new ISPs, that Covad is forcing me to use, can't assign a new /24.
> Shit, one of them can't even assign one static address. The one that this is
> going out thru tis trying to convince me that I can run 62 computers, using
> 130 IP addrs, on a /27 <heh>. We talked earlier about how non-portable
> addresses suck. Here is the reason why. I either use one of their SafetyNet
> providers or suffer up to 45 days of outage. Two weeks of warning and I
> would have been able to avoid the outage. (BTW, my ISDN backup feed is dead
> as well). I've tried contacting Covad, thier executive staff, etc. No joy
> there, Covad doesn't care.
> 
> 100% of MHSC business is directly dependent on our Internet feed. 100% of
> February revenue is gone. I had two product roll-outs that were scheduled
> for the following week. Both are now dead issues. MHSC does CA for some of
> it's customers, renumbering invalidates all those CAs. Every lead we were
> working is now gone, probably forever, and so are many existing customers.
> I'm looking at probable business failure. MHSC could sue, but may not
> survive long enough to collect, even if we win. If MHSC survives this then
> "Damn, I good!"
> 
> I urge everyone, do not;
> 1) Recommend Covad as a DSL provider
> 2) Become a Covad partner.
> 3) Remain on Covad service, find someone else (Rythyms sound good)
> 
> Further, if you have any Covad stock ... sell it.
> 
> The simple reason is that Covad has shown themselves unworthy of trust. They
> will cut off service arbitrarily, without direct cause, without compansation
> or recourse, and without warning. This is NOT the sort of behavior desired
> from an outfit in charge of your key infrastructure.
> 
> We are not large, MHSC cannot afford an $80K+ revenue hit, and that's not
> counting the suits for failure to meet SLA.
> 
> At this point, I'm not worried about any Covad law suits. What are they
> going to do ... put MHSC out of business? They've already taken care of
> that.
> 
> I hope that this comes to the attention of Covad and I hope that they don't
> like it! MHSC will also be filing complaints with the CA-PUC and everywhere
> else that we can. But, a four-year process will not help MHSC stay in
> business. MHSC is already preparing a Marketing Communication plan to get
> this story out. MHSC tried dealing with this peacfully and got ignored, by
> Covad. Covad needs to be shunned by the rest of the Internet community, as a
> bad net-citizen.
> 
> MHSC wasn't the ony business effected. There were 800 other busnesses
> involved in the cut off, that we know of. If any of you know anyone else
> that has been effected by this outage, please let me know.
> 
> -- 
> ROELAND M.J. MEYER
> Managing Director
> Morgan Hill Software Company, Inc.
> TEL: +001 925 373 3954
> FAX: +001 925 373 9781
> http://www.mhsc.com
> mailto: rmeyer at mhsc.com
> 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Gibbard				scg at gibbard.org	





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