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The Almighty Buck

Covad On The Mend 110

Posted by michael from the delaying-drowning dept.
ewhac writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Covad, who filed for bankruptcy protection last year, is slowly regaining strength. With $246 million in cash, Covad claims it has enough to carry it to profitability. They've also struck a deal with AOL to provide high-speed connectivity to AOL customers. The battle isn't over, though, as Pacific Bell continues to undercut Covad's offerings. Covad is effectively Pacific Bell's only remaining competitor for DSL service. As a happy Covad customer through Speakeasy.net, I'm pleased I won't be forced into PacBell's or AT&T's hands any time soon."
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Covad On The Mend More

Covad On The Mend

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  • Pacbell is an investor in Covad (Score:3, Interesting)

    by madbrain ( 11432 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @07:01PM (#4210244) Homepage Journal
    So you aren't getting away from them either way.

  • RIAA involvement? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by unicron ( 20286 )
    I just found out my local broadband ISP, Cox Communications, is helping the RIAA track down mp3 traders. I spoke with a friend of mine today that knows someone in their IT department, who told my friend that the way it works, at least with my ISP, is that your ISP provides the RIAA with a list of all the IP's in the range that Cox leases, and the RIAA monitors p2p networks such as Kazaa, Morpheus, etc. When the RIAA finds a trader with an IP in that range, they contact Cox with the IP, Cox pulls up their records(3 month leases, last time I checked), and then, with the cooperation of the RIAA, decides a "punishment" based on how much mp3 downloading you actually did. Apparently the "punishment" can range from a warning to perminent cancilation of service from Cox, all the way to the RIAA bringing legal action against you. It was enough to scare me, and I've toned down my downloading accordingly. I really hope my ISP is the exception more than the rule when it comes to such an intrusive man(witch)hunt I see unfolding here.
  • All right! Now AOL users can find out 50 times quicker how much their ISP sucks!
    • Personally I wouldn't be proud of staying with a company that supports AOL.
      • I dont care for AOL any more than the next guy, but discrediting a company blindly just does'nt make sense.

        AOL gives me TV, Internet (cable modem), and software (AOLServer! WinAMP!), and I am happy with all of them.
        • I don't "blindly" discredit AOL. They offer often inferior service to other ISPs, their CNN is a horrendous news source [aside from their live coverage], and many many AOL users lack the basic skills required to conduct yourself on the Internet without putting themselves at risk of all sorts of attackers.
          http://www.jokeaday.com/7aolexe.shtml
          I rest my case.
          • AOL serves users not familiar with Internet Etiquette, thats a side-effect of marketing to the masses. If AOL does not serve them, others will. Should an Internet connection come with a free class on how to conduct yourself on the Internet?

            AOL subscribers are AOL subscribers for a reason, they want to be. If they didnt want AOL, they would use something else.
            • Quite true. The same problem arrises from PayPal users, and anything else out on the Internet that requires some caution, and learning, in order to avoid screwing yourself.
    • 50*300 baud=what?

      Is baud just bits/sec or bytes/sec. nm, they will get 1.5kb/s. :-)

  • Yes, this is good news for me as well. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by antis0c ( 133550 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @07:08PM (#4210284)
    I'm a UUNET (gasp Worldcom) customer who uses Covad for my telco. When I first heard about Covad filing Chapter 11, I immediately called UUNET/Worldcom to determine what to do if Covad were go out of business. Worldcom, essentially said I would be shit out of luck. So for the last 6 months or so, I've been a little on edge about whats happening with Covad, but now that I see Covad recovering, I'm happy.

    And then Worldcom filed Chapter 11.. Luckily Covad supports more than just Worldcom in my area, unlike how Covad is the only telco that can provide me DSL.. Funny how Covad uses Verizon lines, yet Verizon can't qualify me for DSL and Covad can..

    Oh well, I don't like Verizon anyway, Go Covad!
    • I have the same thing going on where I am. Qwest the local teleco can't qualify me for DSL, but Covad was able to do it no problem. I'm finally starting to use my home computer again. Slowly I used my home PC less and less cause dial-up doesn't compare to a T1 at work.
    • Funny how Covad uses Verizon lines, yet Verizon can't qualify me for DSL and Covad can..

      Interesting; I had the opposite experience. On my brother's line (Houston, TX) Covad said they could only offer 192kbps SDSL: no ADSL at all, and only slow SDSL. Meanwhile, SWBell are quite happily feeding 2.2Mbps (measured peak traffic - slightly MORE than we're paying for!) down the same copper...

      Does Covad put their equipment somewhere other than the CO? If not, how the hell can line tests return such varying results - duff hardware? Bad database of line lengths? Do they skip line tests entirely, and say "no, we can only give you a crap service" because their DSLAM is maxed out already and they can't afford more linecards? ;-)

  • Covad's Motto... If it don't work, sucks for you. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by litewoheat ( 179018 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @07:09PM (#4210287)
    I just moved and needed to have my DSL moved as well. After Covad did their thing, my DSL didn't work so I called Earthlink and they said that Covad won't do anything about it. They will install once, "test it" and if it works, great and if not, oh well, they won't fix it. That's how they're cutting costs and heading towards profitability. No support whatsoever. A call to Pac Bell got me working DSL in 5 days.

    I can't really say I blame them though it does suck for the ISPs that rely on Covad.

    • Re:Covad's Motto... If it don't work, sucks for yo (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As a Covad tech will tell you, there really isn't much they can do if your line sucks. I'm assuming you're talking about a line-shared (consumer) service, not a 2nd-line service. The Telco in your area has a huge advantage here for shitty lines, as they have considerable control over what they can do to clean them up (pull new ones, replace filters/taps/et al on the line, etc.) Covad has virtually none of these options, as those that they can ask the ILEC to perform cost so much that they'll never make a profit on your service.

      That's the way it is - control of the physical line gives the ILECs a big advantage here, and there simply is very little that Covad can do. That's why you see the "test it and go" policy of Covad - they have to take it as it is, and generally there's nothing they can do to improve it without spending big chunks of cash (I mean, is it worth it to spend $200 to remove the taps on a consumer line which you're only making $7 per month profit on? Not really....)

      • Covad has virtually none of these options, as those that they can ask the ILEC to perform cost so much that they'll never make a profit on your service.

        The solution, then, is for Covad to pass these costs on to the consumer. Worst case, they lose a customer. Best case, the customer gets pissed, asks Covad what he can do about it, Covad tells him it's because of the monopoly held by the ILEC, and the customer gets together other Covad customers who have been similarly screwed and files a class-action against the ILEC. More likely, most people will fall somewhere in between, meaning they'll pay Covad's fee, and be happy about it, because at least they don't have to deal with the slimy ILEC directly.

        • one thing that covad can do is change the type of service... some crappy lines are good enough for different types of (usually) more expensive dsl connections... overall covad is very good and i am very pleased with my covad/speakeasy dsl... but im am kind of lucky because my line length is jsut a few feet as the local dsl curcuit is next door :)... but dont slam covad for not having mroe control than they possibly can...
      • There are plenty of things that a CLEC can do (or can get the ILEC to do) if your line doesn't support DSL out of the gate. There are usually other pairs they can try, or alternate wiring that can be used in the CO, or poor stretches of your line that can be replaced. There are also some problems that are easy to fix, but difficult to diagnose. Of course every hour they spend trying to make your line work is 6-12 months of profit they loose paying technicians, so there is no incentive for them to try and solve problems. There are commercial DSL providers that will solve the problems for you if you are willing to pay. I have worldcom as my CLEC (but not as my ISP), and they were very helpful getting DSL to work in my location in a situation that covad would have walked away from.

        Experienced telco labor is expensive, and you can't have cheap broadband, free instalation, and good technicians all at the same time. You only get to pick two.

  • Speakeasy & Covad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bdowne01 ( 30824 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @07:14PM (#4210312) Homepage Journal
    I was a completely happy customer with Speakeasy.net DSL in my old apartment. Until I moved...

    For some reason Speakeasy.net just couldn't figure out how to cancel my service. It took them nearly 5 months to figure it out and it cost me quite a bit of $$ in the meantime.

    Overall, I was darn happy with the service. It never had connectivity problems.

    The only suggestion I can make is: 1) Don't move. and 2) Don't cancel.

    If you follow those you should be just fine :)

    • speakeasy charges early cancel rates if oyu sign a 12 or 24 months contract... sorry but it costsa money to move... if your new dsl is speakeasy then they wont charge you that canceling charge...
      • Hmm...

        Unless I was lied to, I was supposed to be grandfathered from the original provider's (Flash.net) contract that didn't have a set duration of service. According to that contract I needed to give 30 days (which I did).

        Who knows!
    • I also had very good results with Covad and SpeakEasy until I moved. I also had to call 2-3 times to get them to stop charging me. They eventually did, and properly credited everything back.

      I asked the rep why they were so bad at this, while they seem to be pretty good at everything else. I was told that their customer service efforts were being crushed under hordes of new customers, who were switching their Covad service to SpeakEasy as man other Covad-affiliated DSL ISPs were going out of business.



  • I would be worried about Verizon resell DSL to providers such as Earthlink and provide it customer direct. I have also heard from a Verizon employee that in the near future they plan to offer DSL for $30 i'm not sure if thats an introductury rate or permanent.
    • 30 bucks? hell I'd pay triple that
    • In my area Verizon already offers DSL, and you have the option of just using them as your line provider or as your full provider/ISP.

      I chose the former, and have been using DCANet [dca.net] as my service provider and Verizon as my line provider for almost 3 years now with no bumps in the road and maybe a routing problem once a year that is fixed within 10 minutes of being reported, probably one of the best ISPs I've ever had....

      Plus for my $40 a month, I get all static IPs and nothing filtered, everything allowed... unlike my cable modem where I coulndt' use my work VPN.....

    • What about DSL.net . DSL.net has been my ISP for 2 years.. the only time our line has EVER gone down has been on Sept. 11. ok so some wacko desides to fly a plane into your co-location faciltity... I'll let that slide.

  • Covad good, Speakeasy not so good (Score:4, Informative)

    by Osty ( 16825 ) on Friday September 06, 2002 @07:24PM (#4210358)

    Being a customer of both Covad and Speakeasy, I have to say that I do like Covad. Speakeasy, on the other hand, is a whole different story. Maybe it's just me, but the problems I've had with them have been significant and costly.


    It all started a year ago, when Covad filed for bankruptcy. At the time, I was on XO's network (having been grandfathered in, since I was a residential customer of Concentric, before they changed to XO and dropped residential offerings). I truly liked XO, but with Covad's Chap11 scare, I needed some sort of reliability, and XO couldn't give it to me. They had a fall-back plan for their business customers if Covad would kick the bucket, but we remaining residential customers were out of luck. Therefore, I began looking for a new ISP. Having heard good things about Speakeasy, it was a natural choice to switch.


    This is where things started to get hairy. I went through the whole ISP switch process at Speakeasy, but somehow they neglected to complete my switch. My $90/mo 1.5mbps/386kbps line through Covad that I had with XO was switched over to Speakeasy, and they even started billing me for the extra IPs and domain hosting service I ordered. However, they didn't start billing me for what they intially told me was a $90/mo line, same as what I had with XO. (note: This is the first place I screwed up. I didn't get the 1.5/384 @ $90/mo offer in writing, since it was clearly listed on their website. This came back to haunt me later.)


    After several months, I decided I didn't want to get charged a huge lump sum for back-charges, so I notified Speakeasy that they never completely provisioned my account. They were quite nice about it, and promptly finished the provisioning order. However, since August when I switched and October when I notified them about the billing problem, they replaced the 1.5/384 straight ADSL @ $90/mo offering with a 1.5/128 line-sharing RADSL @ $90/mo offering. Imagine my surprise, then, when I get my next bill and see not a $90*4 charge, but a $250*4 charge! All of a sudden, my $90/mo line had turned into a $250/mo line. Obviously this was unacceptable, and I spent the next two weeks getting passed around among the various customer service representatives at Speakeasy, all of whom promised to figure out the problem and solve it, but none of whom actually did. (note: Had I gotten the original offer in writing at the time of switch, they'd have had no choice but to give me the 1.5/384 line @ $90/mo like it was when I signed up. But I didn't. c'est la vie.)


    After two weeks of bullshit and getting the run-around, I decided I would split the difference and convert up to 768 SDSL ($160/mo), if Speakeasy would reduce the $250/mo back charges to $90/mo. After another week of negotiating this deal, I finally got a useful rep, and was able to get my back charges reduced and the new line provisioned. (note: It took another several days to iron out this conversion, because first I was told my initial ADSL line, being a straight connection and not line-sharing, would be sufficient for SDSL. Then I was told it wouldn't, and I'd need to go through the whole order process again.)


    In the end, I had to have Verizon and Covad both come out to run a new loop. Verizon was surprisingly prompt, arriving two days after I completed my order, and Covad, while scheduled for a week later, actually noticed that Verizon finished their work promptly and notified me that they would be out the very next day. Go Covad! At that point, I had my new loop, but I had to fight with Speakeasy for another week for them to get it provisioned and into their system, and give me back my previous IPs (easier to do that than it would be to change DNS records and wait 24 hours for them to fully propogate).


    Moral of the story: When dealing with Speakeasy, get everything in writing. Document who you talk to and when, and what promises they made. If they don't keep those promises (even if it's something as trivial as them saying they'll call you in a day, and they don't), call them on it. And don't be lulled into thinking they're a good company simply because the reps act supportive. They'll lie to you through their teeth, making promises they never intend to keep.


    Oh well, only a couple months left on this contract. Maybe I need to research another ISP switch. Sigh ...

    • I just want to say that Speakeasy has been great for me.

      One of the great things about Speakeasy has been their customer service. They understand Linux, know what traceroute is and can and will check things for you. I only needed that help once in the last three years.

      May be location dependant - I'm in San Francisco.
    • look with ANY ISP you need to get it all in writing... i have speakeasy and i am VERY happy with it and i also have got all my freind setup on it and nobody every has a problem... switching is always a bitch but you obviously had one of the rare incidences with speakeasy... they are awsomre and they just sent me my geforce 4 that i forgot to ask for 6 months ago and it arrived in half the time they said it would take...
  • I'm glad to see Covad coming back. For DSL to survive intact it needs to have numbers, both in subscribers and suppliers. Covad always provided good service to their customers and I hope this pattern continues, as it's a rare thing among telecoms today!
  • Many parts of the areas up here in Washington are left dangling by Verizon [verizoneatspoop.com]. So the only high speed dsl type service is IDSL [covad.com].

    I would love more bandwidth at a cheaper price, but Verizon [verizoneatspoop.com] would rather sell DSL in high income markets. I even saw an article about a lawsuit, ATT broadband being sued for not putting cable in low income urban areas. I hope the lawsuits spreads to Telcos and dsl. I found out when the equipment arrives, Redmond is winning out over other areas. Pisses me off, Verizon says they will have the equipment in for the last 2 years for DSL. My phone line qualifies, but they are at capacity at my central office. And no cable modems in my area due to a mom and pop cable company moved in and made everyone agree to long term contracts. (screwed again...)

    But, back to the IDSL, its only 144/144K, but its connect 24/7 (not like isdn), Covad even has an Sys-Admin package that lets you have 2 IPs, and allows you to run servers. Great thing about it, its the lowest ping ive seen around, 30ms to game servers in Seattle via SpeakEasy. Covad and Speakeasy has been pretty good, other than the price for idsl. (-;
  • I _WAS_ a Speakeasy.net subscriber, until Covad starting screwing me. After about 2 Months of perfect, fast and latent free (for the most part) service, Covad started to screw me. Every 2 weeks, almost on the dot, my DSL would go "wonky". I'd get a 296ms first hop, (usually 5ms). I'd have to call them and they'd deprovision, and reprovision my DSL. It worked. It was a hastle, but it worked... for two months. Then Covad filled Chpt 11 and I was screwed. Same thing happens, and Covad _REFUSES_ to do anything for me. Something about you need 400+ms or 30% PL Before they'll have someone look into it. I promptly canceled my DSL, and went with Road Runner WI. I've had no problems (besides some Ahole garbage truck driver pull my cable line off the pole). I really did like my DSL Tho, it was more stable. But the bandwidth with RR is amazing.

    I guess Covad just killed all their customer service people to cut overhead and increase profites. To bad I'll NEVER suggest anyone to use Covad. Their loss.
    • 400+ms and 30% packet loss? Heck, I get better than that with my slow as [expletive of choice here] sub-28.8 connection that seems like it is being run over carrier pigeon instead of phone line.
    • That sounds like the port you were jacked into on the Turnstone (or whatever Covad uses) went flaky. Obviously, this doesn't help you now, and nobody replaces a full blade for just one port on it, but if you went back, you probably wouldn't have that problem, since by now somebody else is probably provisioned to that jack (and having the same problems) unless, of course, your line hasn't been removed. Or it could have been your jack on the DSLAM, but either way, switching you to a different one for a test period should have determined that.

  • Project Pronto will KILL COVAD!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What everyone here fails to realize is that SBC, parent of Pacbell, is deploying Remote ADSL Terminals based off of fiber lines from the CO called PROJECT PRONTO. It will completely eliminate Covad within SBC territory in the next 5 years or so. SBC converts Central Offices over to PRONTO ONLY, once all the lines have access to the Remote Terminals. I work at an ISP and have seen it happen at SBC and other LEC's. Covad cannot resell SBC or other ADSL service from fiber boxes/remote terminals, and thus they Covad will start to die a slow death at the hands of SBC. Anyone care to challenge my opinion?
    • I will. Project Pronto has very little to do with the COs themselves. It has to do with the building of cable vaults some distance away from the CO, between which is a fiber connection, from which DSL qualified copper comes out. Now, the thing with these cable vaults is, in order for them to be feasibly built, the LEC can't put any colo space in them, if they do, the economics of it don't work, and it makes more sense for them not to build. Now, in a sense, Project Pronto could potentially harm Covad, since Covad would only be able to run DSL lines from the COs, while SBC can run DSL from both their COs and their cable vaults, so someone not in range from the CO, but in range from the cable vault could receive a DSL line from SBC, but not from Covad. However, Covad doesn't have those customers *now*, so if they are resigned to not having them, it doesn't matter. If someone develops an extended range form of DSL (that is worthwhile, meaning 1.5M/348K down/up, or somewhere in that range) Project Pronto falls through. It's a gamble. Covad could run their own version of Project Pronto, too. It just takes money.
      • Covad could run their own version of Project Pronto, too. It just takes money.

        Not exactly - SBC is running a copper loop from EU's premise to an RT, then fiber from the RT to the CO. There's no space in that cable vault to lease to Covad, is there? So, Covad can't install their own RT out there (and it'd be REALLY expensive anyway). Covad could um.. run a dry pair from the EU's premise to their own RT, but um, that's really not economical at all. They could run a wet line, but then they'd have to provide voice, and that starts getting messy with the PUC from what I understand.

        Otherwise, you're absolutely right, SBC is extending the service to customers too far away from the CO, which is great, but it's not available to CLECs, but that's OK because the CLECs can't provide service at that distance right now anyway.
        • Not exactly - SBC is running a copper loop from EU's premise to an RT, then fiber from the RT to the CO. There's no space in that cable vault to lease to Covad, is there? So, Covad can't install their own RT out there (and it'd be REALLY expensive anyway). Covad could um.. run a dry pair from the EU's premise to their own RT, but um, that's really not economical at all. They could run a wet line, but then they'd have to provide voice, and that starts getting messy with the PUC from what I understand.

          I was only joking about Covad creating their own Project Pronto. Obviously, a company struggling for solvency is *not* going to have anywhere near the capital necessary to build out overlapping fields of DSL service in order to provide complete coverage. Real estate is too expensive, equipment is too expensive, that much copper is too expensive, etc...It is theoretically possible, but highly unlikely. Were we still in the middle of the halcyon days of the dotcom boom, I wouldn't want to lay any odds against an attempt, though.

          Otherwise, you're absolutely right, SBC is extending the service to customers too far away from the CO, which is great, but it's not available to CLECs, but that's OK because the CLECs can't provide service at that distance right now anyway.

          On the other hand, as has been pointed out, SBC is willing to hand Covad a PVC from their RTs. For a small fee, of course.

    • Re:Project Pronto will KILL COVAD!!!! (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Uh...I'm with SBC...oversimplified, but it's almost bedtime after a long week...Pronto just exists to extend broadband capability (mainly via ADSL) to neighborhoods where the distance to the nearest CO would otherwise inhibit the technology over existing copper. Once a Pronto RT is installed, any DSL provider can link over the facility to their POP using SBC's Wholesale DSL service. Pronto expands everyone's ability to overcome the (generally) 14 kilofoot ADSL distance limitation imposed by the nationwide legacy CO footprint.

      Now, if your concern is that it still isn't economically pretty in large areas of the country for alternate providers to replicate and/or replace 100 years of installed copper infrastructure, welcome to the wonderful world we were given by Judge Green back in 1984..... [And, no, most of us inside the 'Big Telcos' aren't thrilled with the practical mechanics of it either.]
    • No, SBC is not switching everything over to RTs and eliminating direct copper loops to the COs. They are installing a hell of a lot of RTs, which is fantastic for the beyond 18,000 feet who can't get service through Covad anyway.
  • Covad failed to show up for the first two install appointments for my Speakeasy DSL in Boston. I took the day off both times. They didn't call, they didn't email, they simply didn't show up. Corporate, monopoly-bearing arrogance at its very worst. I complained to Speakeasy and the guy I talked to admitted that they got a lot of complaints about that. When they finally showed up one night, there was no apology, no explanation, just the you're-lucky-we're-here-at-all arrogance you'd expect from a company with no real competition (at least at the time, don't know how it is now).

    Aren't people like this supposed to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes? Did it come? Were they against the wall? Screw them, I say, for my experience at least.
    • Corporate, monopoly-bearing arrogance at its very worst.

      Covad is not a monopoly. They're the little guy, trying to compete against the monopoly. The problems you had was probably due to one employee who was slacking off, and it's quite likely he was fired not long after you had that experience. Covad cannot afford to employ more field techs in a particular region than are needed; the best they can do is replace the ones who don't do their jobs.

      It's quite possible the tech who did finally show up was a different tech. Sure, he should have apologized on behalf of his company, but they probably didn't even tell him you'd had two missed appointments already. He was just sent there to do a job, and he did it.

  • Megapath (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06, 2002 @08:47PM (#4210618)
    I doubt Covad will fall. I work at a company who delivers content to online jukeboxes. As a company who distributes online music, we have a wide variety of connection providers. Our largest provider is Megapath, and the vast majority of those connections are marked Megapath-Covad. Of something near 700 active connections 368 are Megapath. We favor Megapath and Covad because their support is by far, above and beyond, the best. I work as a liaison between the owners of the remote jukeboxes and the ISPs who serve them, and when I work on anything other then a Megapath connection a deep fear grips my heart.

    I've had broadband providers tell me that it didn't matter that my DSL connection could be put to shame by a standard 33.6. If they rolled a truck, and the connection was up, it would cost us. Oh, and they didn't have to fix it either. Still other ISPs take an approach of install it, if it works great, if not screw you there are others to sell our poor service to. Not Megapath. Its almost to the point where they will hunt you down and force you to ensure the problem is solved, or their ticket isn't closed. Its this level of organization and commitment to the customer that ensures that we remain loyal to them regardless of cost. Its just a pity that they are not 100% nation wide, otherwise we would have nothing but Megapath connections.
  • Does anyone know when will more _affordable_ DSL (20-30 dollar USD price range) services will be out? Ive always wanted to get DSL, but its average price tag is far out of my budget...
  • I hope they're working on making their backend as good as their ad campaign, because all I hear all day is radio spots for Covad, and every time I turn on the TV I see one.

    The first thing I thought was, 'They're gone again if all they do is buy ads'. Here's hoping they'll successfully manage themselves this time around; I doubt there will be a 3rd chance.
  • I dealt with Covad when I worked at Earthlink, and they were WONDERFUL to deal with! They gave us all the tools we could possibly want to monitor connection status from the DSLAM, we had access to their trouble tickets online, and they were quick to respond to problems. Plus, they offered better speed and availability than many of the ILECs.

    It sounds like they may have gone downhill since then, I don't know. Now that they're back on their feet financially, I'd still have to recommend Covad if they offer service in your area (they have no DSLAM in my CO so I'm using Qwest as my LEC). Of course, the choice of ISP may be more important to you; some ISPs will only work with certain LECs (my current employer does not offer service through Covad).
  • anybody have any thoughts about what will happen now that the telcos are not forced to share lines? the appeal was not granted, so this should be a huge problem for everyone but the telcos - line sharing is no longer government-mandated as of jan 2003.
  • speakeasy pros:

    2 ips for same price as covad

    no pppoe

    speakeasy cons:

    pop located in seattle for st louis customers, and they wouldn't relocate us to a closer one (chicago, etc). latency was over 100ms to anywhere

    service started going out around 3-5am for periods up to 2 hours in the summer

    covad pros:

    pop located in chicago for st louis customers, 40ms latency to anywhere.

    no install/hardware fees (they even let me skip their 'free after rebate' zyxel router because i didn't want to hassle with it and use my speakeasy service's dsl bridge)

    price just dropped to $70/month for 384/1.5!

    covad cons:

    uses pppoe for static ips (?!) and only offers 1 static ip for telesoho service at regular price

    had to sign up for another year to get the above-mentioned price drop

    all things considered, i would recommend both

  • After Bell Atlantic (Verizon) DSL fiasco which ended after ~1 year of BA's assurances of ability to deliver service yet never delivering it. (It took an official complaint to NY State Public Service Commission) I am happy to say that I'm BA/Verizon free.

    But here comes the Covad problem. Recently they've enabled my CO, BUT since I do not have BA for as my local provider, (have MCI atm) they refuse the services pointing to some rediculous 'inside wiring' or such sole ownership of BA.. Now I will call the NYSPSC.. as well as MCI and BA itself (and threaten with a lawsuit if necessary), but I've been told people were able to get around this stupidity by other means. If anyone cares to share, I'd be much appreciative.

  • Covad,

    I live in the SHADOW of the AOL building in Loudoun County, VA. My town is filled with AOL Millionaires renovating 100 year old houses.

    I HAVE NO BANDWIDTH! I am paying $150 a month for an ISDN line and a stitic IP address... WHAT DO YOU THINK I'D BE WILLING TO PAY FOR a 384k DSL?

    According to the rumor mill around here, the phone company's CO has a big empty room, built especially for you, just waiting for you to come in and drop all your nice equipment to give the area various DSL flavors... But you haven't done anything! Originally, people were saying you couldn't handle the capacity of installs you'd get here, with all this pent up demand. Then, people were saying you couldn't AFFORD to do anything...

    Tell you what... Take some of that $245 million in CASH, and GET THE EQUIPMENT IN HERE. Hire a few people to do some installs and support the area, and guess what? THAT IS HOW BUSINESSES FIND CUSTOMERS AND MAKE MONEY! THAT IS THE PATH TO PROFITABILITY! Find the customers willing to pay out the ASS for your service, and MAKE THEM HAPPY!

    Sincerely,

    someone who has your money in his pocket, and all you need to do to get it is give me some frelling bandwidth!
  • AT&T DSL is Covad. Read the documentation on AT&T's Website.

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