OT: Trying to find a connectivity provider that wont go under (wa s RE: CAIS/Ardent and now Network Access Solutions)

Sat Jun 1 05:47:35 UTC 2002

[ Warning: mini-rant follows ]

On Fri, 31 May 2002, Rowland, Alan  D wrote:

> But you have Drew Carey!

And a very entertaining gentleman he is. Quite funny, in fact. Doesn't 
help our broadband situation. ;)

> What about cable access? It's more and more an option that has, IMHO,
> significant benefits over DSL. No PPPoE for starters...

Bahahahaha.

I understand from my partner, who used to work in the industry, that 
Cleveland was the last big US city to get cable TV. We're also probably 
the last to get cable Internet... Cablevision used to have a chokehold
on the market, holding franchises for Cleveland (the old North Coast 
Cable) and most of the suburbs. But they knew as early as 1997-1998 that
they were leaving Cleveland to focus on NYC, their home area, so they 
didn't do squat with their infrastructure; we couldn't even get them to
add channels.

Adelphia took over and now has broadband Internet access in parts of
Cleveland. Parts. Not all; parts.

Here in Lake County, it's Adelphia (former TCI) and AT&T Broadband (former 
Continental Cablevision/MediaOne). AT&T told me last spring that it'd be 
three months to get RoadRunner deployed, and then I met up with an 
installer at a local gas station, queried him and found out it'd be more 
like a year or two -- and that was *before* AT&T dropped @Home and 
RoadRunner in favor of their own service. Doesn't matter, I moved 
anyhow... here in M-O-L, Adelphia has the franchise, and Customer Service 
assures me that we'll have Powerlink (not to mention the channels I 
want... gimme Comedy Central and Food Network, dammit) when upgrades are
completed in the fall.

I sure hope so. I can't even sell myself DSL, fercryinoutloud. Rhythms
used to be in M-O-L, but WCOM opted not to stay in my CO, probably due to
economics; the M-O-L CO serves an area that is 95% residential, 4.5%
wetlands and only about .5% businesses. I am stuck with Bell DSL. Until
Adelphia launches Powerlink here, that is.

Of course, the founding family just left Adelphia amidst a large to-do
about... **drumroll...** accounting irregularities! I'm not convinced 
they'll stick around. Although, if they launched Internet access in M-O-L 
I'd still sign up and drop Ameritech DSL immediately...

I think my last, best hope for broadband access is to launch the WiFi
service that my colleagues and I are talking about doing. Supposedly, one 
of my friends has funding for this little venture. I won't get excited 
until I see some signed contracts...

Oh. Did I mention that three small cities to the south and east of us --
Akron, Canton and Ashtabula -- have cablemodems? RoadRunner has been in 
the Akron/Canton Area for years already... 

-- 
Steve Sobol, CTO (Server Guru, Network Janitor and Head Geek)
JustThe.net LLC, Mentor On The Lake, OH  888.480.4NET   http://JustThe.net
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user/You've got your own newsgroup:
alt.total.loser"   - "Weird Al" Yankovic, "It's All About the Pentiums"