DIRECTV Broadband Shuts Down 464
Phroggy writes "Effective today (Friday the 13th), DIRECTV Broadband is officially out of business. The company will remain partially operational for the next 60 to 90 days, and we will work to transition our roughly 160,000 customers to another provider. Details are still sketchy. So, anybody gonna be hiring in the Portland area in a couple months?" There's a press release about the shutdown.
Broadband shut down? (Score:3, Funny)
from the ashes (Score:5, Funny)
Here's why:
DirecTV DSL, a subsidiary of Hughes, which is in turn owned by General Motors, was formerly known as Telocity until Hughes purchased them [eprairie.com] in July 2001.
In my part of the country, the switch to the corporate entity Telocity occurred at about the same time as Northpoint bankruptcy forced a CLEC switch from Northpoint to Covad for some customers of Megapath. In October 2000, Megapath had purchased the assets and customer base of an ISP. Megapath kept the business customers of that ISP and spun off [internet.com] their residential customers to Chicago-based Telocity.
And the name of that ISP? Formerly-St. Louis-based Phoenix Networks, founded by a guy named Peter Roberts, who evolved a one-man network integration business into a rapid-growth internet service. Of course that Phoenix should not to be confused with Phoenix [phoenix.com] the BIOS that has the legal team that is making Phoenix [mozilla.org] the superlative web browser change it's name, none of which is happening in Phoenix [phoenix.gov].
Dizzy yet? I know I am. Hope I got at least the broad strokes right. Anyway, I'm glad I got off that Merry-Go-Round during what seemed to be a weekend-stay at MegaPath, though I supported a few friends throught the multiple changes that followed. Maybe the ride finally is coming to a stop.
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
What issues? In general, the service rocked - static IP, standard Ethernet with DHCP (with USB also available, bleh), easy setup (if you don't like the installer or don't run Windows, just point your browser to http://10.5.1.2/ and enter your phone number, and the gateway configures itself with all your settings).
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Kinda creepy, I had no idea this was happening =(. I just wanted to log in to Slashdot to read some news...now this. For those of us who run a home business on broadband services like DSL, this is scary news indeed.
I hope it works out =(.
-Signed
More pessimistic about the future every minute.
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Should say...
You work for them right? Concerning the Telocity modem/fake routers that we use currently, for the services, can you tell us how we can mod them in order to use its routing capabilities? I am going to assume, that directv will lets the consumers keep them. What are your thoughts on this?
Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd assume they'll let everyone keep them - they're basically worthless on any other network, and why pay for the return shipping? They're not fake routers, they're real routers - you'll notice you're on your own 4-IP subnet. It's the option to enable NAT that you're interested in, which I won't tell you how to enable. Not that it matters much, but I do still have a job.
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
My take on this post is that you need to cut back on caffiene
this is no good (Score:4, Informative)
Re:this is no good (Score:3, Informative)
Re:this is no good (Score:3, Informative)
The CO servicing me is too outdated even though I'm in range, so I'm stuck with a crappy cable service (I actually find myself eager for Time Warner to buy out the community contract so I can get roadrunner).
Re:this is no good (Score:2, Informative)
That's weird, I've had Cox.net for about a year now and my IP has changed only two times.
1) IP was "A" then I changed NICs and it became "B", after a switched back to original NIC it became "A" once again.
2) I moved.
Re:this is no good (Score:2)
Re:this is no good (Score:2)
I just spoke with them on the phone(I need to switch too because I'm with directv). They say that each static IP is $2.99 more to your monthtly cost. I run 3 machines so that means 3 statics. For me it comes to $49.99 + $2.99 + $2.99. $55.97 a month.
Directv uses a router/hub so you can set up your network via NAT. This is what I've been doing, and it cost me an extra $10 for the NAT/firewall(they call it the connect/protect plan). Totalling at $59.99 a month.
So actually Speakeay is a much better deal. It costs less, and you get 3 static IPs(rather than just 1). The only problem is that it's $49.99 for 608up/128down instead of 1.5Mup/128down that directv offered. So for the big file traders this might not be the way to go. But I think I can live with 608kbps.
Also I have a suspicion that speakeasy has better latency/ping times. Can anyone confirm that?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:this is no good (Score:2)
More Info (Score:5, Informative)
DSLReports [dslreports.com] (forum)
DirecTV DSL [directvdsl.com] (info for customers)
Press Release [prnewswire.com] from Hughes (parent company of DirecTV)
Horses Mouth (Score:5, Informative)
How sudden? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How sudden? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How sudden? (Score:2)
TV ads are booked weeks (often months) in advance. This decision could have been in the works for a while.
Goatse alert! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How sudden? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it was VERY sudden. Rumors and speculation was sort of going around this week (directors disappearing for off-site meetings, hmmm...) but before this morning, nobody had any idea it would happen like this. The marketing department is gone now, of course, but wouldn't have pulled the ads before today (if they have yet).
Re:How sudden? (Score:2)
seems like they did it scissor style.. *snap*.
some poor sap was doing a sales call when phone was cut off *poof*, talk about feeling stupid.
now, that does sound a little odd though, not like things should be done.. things like this don't come out of the blue.
Doh! (Score:2)
What a shame! They might be missed.
Directvinternet.com
directvdsl.com (formerly Telocity)
telocity.com
It was the name that did it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It was the name that did it! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It was the name that did it! (Score:5, Informative)
I too thought "hmmm... DirecTVDSL, maybe it goes through the satellite... naaaah."
DirecPC is interesting because it does the download from a satellite (about 300 to 400 kbps) but the upload from a dial-up connection. So you have to use their software that splits your traffic for you. You get fairly good response since most users download a lot, but upload little. The drawback is that you still need a separate phone line.
DirecWay is actual TWO-way satellite broadband. It was supposed to get the same 300 - 400kbps download speed and a 128kbps upload speed.
Sounds great until you think of the actual time taken for clicks to be processed. Since your signal has to go from your roof to a satellite, to earth, do stuff, then take the same course back, response lag can range up to the
This makes certain applications fail (including a Web application we make). Once you get a response it is very fast, but the lag... wow...
TTFN
Re:It was the name that did it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Incidentally I don't see why you would have to use their software which splits traffic. Basic routing should take care of that, as long as your ISP is not blocking traffic from random routable IP addresses which come from your IP address. Since you are speaking TCP/IP over PPP (in almost every case) on a modem link to an ISP, as long as the machine with the outbound connection is forwarding packets between interfaces (IE, it is a router) you ought to have no problems sending out that traffic.
However if they are blocking traffic from other IPs there is another solution, use a VPN to some asset of the satellite ISP who then relays your requests - this is slow and costs more, and I think doing bidirectional satellite is the only reasonable solution. Sure, you can't play games over it, but only a poorly designed web application will bitch about two seconds of seemingly random lag, which is a common occurence on every home internet link I've ever heard of. If your web app chokes because someone has a 2 second lag time on top of the usual lag one sees on the 'net, your web app is poorly designed.
Re:It was the name that did it! (Score:2, Informative)
I have had people ask if DSL meant "Direct Satellite Link"
Why Portland? (Score:2, Informative)
Well, if that's the case then join the party... there are plenty of us here not working.
Re:Why Portland? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why Portland? (Score:2)
hahahaha....
I got out of there in 98! One of the best things I ever did was get out of that shitty company.
Making the Tech job market harder? (Score:3, Interesting)
What does this bode for folks in nearby cities (like Seattle, for example) who are currently battling an already shitty tech market?
-Unemployed in Seattle
Doesn't look good for anyone (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really upsetting because broadband is so important to so many people these days. Geeks, eBay'ers, etc. need to be connected, and ISPs, telcos, etc. don't seem to be able to provide fairly cheap, reliable service.
Hughes shutdown strands broadband users
CNET News.com - 8 minutes ago
major ways Web providers deliver broadband to homes and offices.
Hughes to close terrestrial broadband operation
Bizjournals.com - 1 hour ago
toward transitioning existing customers to alternative service providers.
Hughes Shuttering a Fast ISP Unit - TheStreet.com
Broadband prices to rise in early 2003
ZDNet.co.uk, UK - 7 hours ago
12 months. "Recent advertising campaigns from BT and its service providers
BTw in new year ADSL promo - The Register
AOL's Iffy Broadband Deals
InternetNews.com - 12 Dec 2002
But the hefty carriage fees it faces from cable providers add up to iffy
prospects for making money off broadband, consumer advocates say.
The Layoffs That Stole Christmas - Washington Post
AOL's Iffy Broadband Deals - InternetNews.com
AOL's Parsons: "This Isn't Terminal" - BusinessWeek
Local cable TV, Internet choices debated
Hampton Union, NH - 7 hours ago
AT&T Broadband and Comcast, the town's current Internet and cable providers.
BT fails to make the connection
CW360.com, UK - 14 hours ago
of waiting until the local level of demand for broadband justifies an
Re:Doesn't look good for anyone (Score:2, Interesting)
The word on the street I keep hearing is that's it's very difficult for companies to make profits off broadband. I really don't know why this is the case, broadband really isn't THAT unpopular. Are investors too impatient on a return on their investments? Do a lot of these companies just have a poor business model? Are these companies just badly managed? Or is this just a natural weeding of bad companies in an industry that's still fairly young?
I'd be willing to bet on the latter. Seems like this same thing happened in the early commercial dialup ISP era, but no one heard about it because the companies affected were much smaller.
Re:Doesn't look good for anyone (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, adoption rates have not been good at all, the companies were expecting much higher penetration rates by now, and most of them spent too much money on capital equipment. Now they aren't running at capacity, and are unprofitable. This compbined with the new investment focus on cost cutting, means that they are leaving quickly. Sprint probably took the DSLAM from your area, to an area that was already operating at capacity, so they didn't have to buy another one.
Re:Doesn't look good for anyone (Score:3, Insightful)
Other than giving your location-mandated baby Bell even more money for shitty customer service and outdated equipment.
Scott
Re:Doesn't look good for anyone (Score:5, Insightful)
> Geeks, eBay'ers, etc. need to be connected, and
> ISPs, telcos, etc. don't seem to be able to provide
> fairly cheap, reliable service.
You cant have everything for nothing.
You want expensive services for cheap? No one can do it.
As long as T1's and T3's cost the price they do, _someone_ has to bear that. The customer complains it shouldnt be them it should be the ISP. But why is that exactly?
The only reason in the past for an ISP to do this is to get a T1 and share it with say a number of dialup ports.
Unless you want your DSL/Cable to be 64k or less each way, the numbers dont make finantual sence to the ISPs to not raise prices to charge accordingly.
You want a megabit down? That costs an ISP $1500/month. You people want that for $40/month and not have it shared with 40 or more other people, yet there is no other way to break even, let alone make money.
<rant>
I would love to have that too, but I would also love free art, obtainable medicines for those that need it, not charged to use the airwaves around me, to be able to travel into space, and to be able to modify my own DNA at my whim, and a large number of other things.
As of yet, none of this is happening even though it is all very possible and we are just as capable of doing right now.
<bigger rant>
As long as governments allow the raping of the people by providing one company with a monopoly, and outlawing all competition, all we can do is fight them to give us our USA back. But too many people dont care and are fine with it, so nothing will change except for the worse.
</rant></rant>
That is the problem that needs fixing.
Now on to phase two.. Ideas. Got any? I sure dont
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
> _someone_ has to bear that. The customer
> complains it shouldnt be them it should be the
> ISP. But why is that exactly?
All this hype that has is circling around about 10% of the users sucking up 80% of the bandwidth and thus killing broadband companies and causing the price to rise is complete and utter bullshit.
I did an economic report on the broadband industry (I would gladly post if if I had more bandwidth) and the problem is *not* that too much bandwith is being consumed, but that *not enough people have signed up for braodband thus negating the economies of scale the broadband companies projected*!!!
The marginal cost of extra bandwith is miniscule compared to the capital cost of the equipment deployed for broadband. ATT, Verizon, etc all own the backbone and have a *lot* of dark fiber they could utilize at any moment if the demand were there (the cost of a T-1 is *only* expensive to businesses because they have to pay *extra for a balanced line specifically for them* -- and their business is a much further away from the hubs then a broadband router). The problem is that *demand is not there* and the users that they do have have to offset the capital costs that they sank.
Americans are not computer educated and have no need for broadband in general. Furthermore, there is no way to generate demand for broadband until broadband is widely used (for instance, to make high-quality video availible over the Internet the companies have to have a lot of users, but there won't be a lot of high-bandwith users until high-quality video is avaiable).
Furthermore, due to the FCC deregulation causing media keiretsus, the broadband companies will not offer any service to boost demand due to conflicts of interest. For instance, Verizon could *easily* offer long-distance toll-free telephone over DSL, but this would cause the substitution effect against their own telephone service with very little income effect becuase there is little demand for broadband.
Face it, this bullshit about 10% of the users costing broadband companies too much is just that -- bullshit. If it were really an issue they could implement token bucket weighted fair queueing and everything would be fixed. It is an attempt to convince their inelastic consumers that they are hurting and need more $$ from them. It is so they can suck up consumer surplus from their inelestic consumers by introducing a-la-carte pricing while avoiding backlash by spreading this myth.
The broadband companies are hurting very much, but it has *nothing* to do with people downloading too much -- it is completely due to the fact that the number of people that have signed up are *nowhere* near their projections thus they are trying to offset their capital costs by sucking $$ out of their faithful customers.
If you need evidence of this bandwidth myth, just look at South Korea -- they have 20Mbit connections to their homes chepaer then we do and they don't have bandwidth issues. What they did as opposed to us is that the government boosted demand before broadband rollout by offering computer education virtually free to the entire country -- thus the demand was high enough to offset capital costs at the introduction and because everyone had broadband they could create apps for broadband causing more demand for broadband (and the self-feeding cycle continues).
We never met that critical demand mass here.
In summary, don't listen to the bandwidth crap. It is marketing hype to calm the masses before they start introducing by-the-megabyte pricing to suck up consumer surplus (the people who use the most bandwith are the least likely to completely drop broadband, afterall). All of this is worse then the stupid 'viral' GPL marketing crap that MS put out and now everyone seems to quote.
If I upset you, mod me to hell. If you want to discuss make a good argument.
Re:Doesn't look good for anyone (Score:2, Informative)
One of the problems with a lot of the providers is their failure to differentiate. Its hard to tell the difference between a lot of these ISPs because they don't provide any one thing better than other companies. Most of these companies shot for bill consolidation, which is nice, but hardly something you can sell yourself off of, since so many internet access companies provide it (direcTV dsl, any ILEC ISP, cable broadband, etc.). There's just too many competitors shooting for the bargain/cheap-goods approach.
Having offered a plug for Speakeasy, I must warn you, they're not cheap, because you pay for what you get (or you get what you pay for, depends on how you want to approach it, I guess). That said, you get a lot of things most other ISPs wouldn't dream of offering.
As always, if you want a good medium to get recommendations, DSL Reports [dslreports.com] is a good place to go. Don't take my word on Speakeasy, their reputation there will speak for itself.
However, there is one thing to keep in mind - being in the DSL business, at the consumer level, is asking for a potentially complicated relationship. Installation can be quite a pain, and this has as much to do with any one of your phone lines, local phone company, and fate, as it does with the ISP itself. Some people aren't aware of this or don't realize it, and they get frustrated, and since the ISP is the front line of service, they're the ones who get the blame.
Just posted this myself... (Score:4, Interesting)
I JUST signed up with DTV DSL, and my gateway was in the mail as of yesterday. I'm really pissed, but at the same time I really feel for those hundreds of folks that came to work just to find out they didn't have jobs anymore.
I am a bit pissed that not a single email has been sent out about this. Apparently people are just finding out via forums, and now
Thanks, and good luck to those who were laid off.
Re:Just posted this myself... (Score:2)
Re:Just posted this myself... (Score:2, Informative)
The high price tag of theft (Score:2, Interesting)
Speakeasy! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Speakeasy! (Score:2)
If anyone subscribes with the above link, I'd even split the $50 referral fee!
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Portland Jobs. (Score:5, Informative)
Stream, XO, Powell's, Wal-Mart, Plaid Pantry, Fred Meyer ....
Oh, you want a high-paying IT job? Better start thinking about your own business, and I don't mean consulting. It's death valley for IT in Oregon right now.
Re:Portland Jobs. (Score:5, Funny)
Stream :) (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus its amazing how much you learn - I know more about the product (desktop publishing/graphics software) I support then probably most anyone on here.
Also I'm learning a lot about how to deal with diffucult people - a must in almost any job. I've literally made people who were screaming at me apologize for being so rude.
After all this I still want out because it is a very hard job for the pay. In the end though if I was in charge of hiring someone on a help desk I would look for call center (tech support) experience. Especially when you consider the success rate of most support techs here. Personally I can take a cold call - not know anything about the customers system, its quirks etc (I support mac, windows and sometimes unix products) and well over 90% solve there sometimes complex problem.
Recommended New ISP? (Score:2, Interesting)
Funny, last night I was talking to my family about which ISP we should switch to, because my DirecTV DSL was down for about 90 mins, and once it was back up (past 11 pm PST) we went to DSL Reports. I looked at good backbones, Level(3) and SBC look good.
I'm lookin at PacBell DSL By SBC.
Does anyone have any good alternative for aDSL with a Static IP? (We are a family with a Linksys router and several switches)
Re:Recommended New ISP? (Score:5, Informative)
If you stay with DirecTV DSL, we'll try to migrate you to a new ISP and make it as painless as possible (no guarantees about that, but we'll do our best). If you cancel, you have to wait for the LEC to release your line before you can sign up with another DSL provider, so you're looking at around a month of downtime if you choose to go that route. However, I have no idea what the new ISP will be, and they may not offer a static IP. Check the web site (don't call!); there may be more info on Tuesday.
Re:Recommended New ISP? (Score:2)
Their Modem/fake router (Score:4, Interesting)
The funny thing is.. there is a sticker on it and it still says Telocity.com on it.
Re:Their Modem/fake router (Score:3, Funny)
Lo and behold, there was a big "out of business" sign on the video store when I went back.
I kept the games and movies!
Thank you Blockbuster, for driving the little mom and pop stores into the dust and letting me pocket a few choice games!!!
Re:Their Modem/fake routerDoes this mean I stil ha (Score:3, Informative)
It's not fake, it really is a router - so no, it won't work with another ISP, unless you could get the ISP to spoof Telocity's servers, which they could only do if they had inside knowledge of exactly what the gateway is looking for when it tries to download configs.
You'll notice you're on a 4-IP subnet. Add one to the last octet of your IP address; that's the gateway's LAN interface. The gateway also has a WAN interface on a different subnet. It's a router.
I would start a class action lawsuit (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is it ok for them to charge us to cancel but they can stop providing service at a moments notice and not be liable.
Kind of a double standard.
And yes I know it's probably written somewhere in the contacts that they are not liable.. blah blah blah. It's simply unfair to the consumer.
Re:I would start a class action lawsuit (Score:2, Informative)
So you will have service, it will just be with another service provider.
The point you are missing is... (Score:2)
too bad (Score:4, Interesting)
$50/month with a static IP address. Hughes spent some money when they bought Telocity. When I first got the service (Telocity days) there were a lot of dropped packets and a few problems but it was better than nothing. Over the last year, it has been great. Never goes down, fast transfers.
I guess I need to go find a new provider now. Good luck finding a static IP for $50/month. At least I write off the service as a business expense so Uncle Sam takes part of the hit as well. Serves them right for their dipshit telecom policies.
Why do I get the feeling.. (Score:2)
Hiring in Portland (Score:2, Informative)
No, they aren't. Leave. Leave now. I searched for vain for a year for any position in Portland/Vancouver after being RIF'd.
There are no jobs in Portland.
Run. Run very fast.
WHATEVER you do... avoid the FAP!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Serves You Right! (Score:5, Informative)
I got nothing but crap from DIRECTV Broadband in the wake of the Rhythms collapse last fall. Despite being guaranteed that my SDSL service would continue, it shut down mid-September. I tried for three months to get it repaired and got repeated promises that it would be fixed. Finally, I "cancelled" (how can you cancel non-existant service?) in frustration. Three months later, the bills starting rolling in. DIRECTV was trying to charge me for two months of service I never got, and they claimed that I cancelled my service!
Needless to say, I was furiously pissed. I spent six months trading letters and faxes, got sent to collections, appealed, and was denied. I finally deemed the issue not worth my time and paid the stupid bill.
So, F*ck You, DIRECTV. You got what you deserved. I've spent the last year at 26kbps dialup. Thank God that AT&T/Comcast will finally be completing their broadband upgrade in my city next month.
- Necron69
Re:Serves You Right! (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you complain to the BBB?
Did you write a letter to the President of DirecTV?
Did you sue in small claims court?
I don't know what you are talking about. (Score:3, Interesting)
F*ck You, DIRECTV... Thank God that AT&T/Comcast will finally be completing their broadband upgrade in my city next month.
You will be sorry. We all know what kind of service you get from the local bell. If it were not for them selling my number to telemarketers, I'd never consider paying them for an unlisted number or any of the other expensive anti-anoyance so many fools feel compeled to purchase. Read their ToS, weep, and know it will get worse as their competitors die off. Ever heard the phrase, "You can't fight the phone company"? You will come to learn what it means. Just try telling the local Bell to fuck off, it might be a federal crime.
Read the Classifieds (Score:2, Offtopic)
Just my luck... (Score:2)
Ironic...
DirecTV satellite internet is NOT being shut down. (Score:4, Informative)
DirecWay, which is the satellite internet through DirecTV, is still around. (See the line in the FAQ at DirecTV-DSL Faq [directvdsl.com] "Is DIRECWAY closing? No. DIRECWAY high-speed satellite Internet services remain unchanged.")
For those of you complaining "now I can never get internet out in the boonies", you can still go to DirecWay.com [direcway.com] and sign up.
Heard it on /. first... (Score:2, Interesting)
Hughes/EchoStar merger collapse killed it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cyberonic 1500/768 Static IP No Port Blocks (Score:3, Interesting)
Replace DirectTV DSL with Cyberonic (Worldcom/UUNet reseller)...
1500/768, static IP, no port blocking, $40/$50
http://www.cyberonic.com/int_for_home_dsl.shtml [cyberonic.com]
There are consumer reviews of their service here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/ [dslreports.com]
I had Speakeasy for two years, excellent, but pricey. With Cyberonic (dumb name!) I get similar pings to my Speakeasy SDSL, and massive uploads.
Bah (Score:3, Informative)
Damn Slashdot finds out before the freaking customers do.
Warning! (Score:3, Funny)
"Warning! You really have reached the end of the internet. With us at least."
Damn. It was the best broadband provider around. (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't surprise me at all (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a little horror story of my own about these guys. About 7 months ago, my internet stopped working. I called up DirecTV and ask them why...they say because my credit card had been declined. I say oh right, I forgot to tell you I switched cards...here, have my new card number.
Here is where it got ludicrous
"I'm sorry sir, I can't reactivate your account. You'll have to go through the 4-week provisioning process again."
"What! Why? I already have the equipment."
"Because your account has been cancelled."
"Why?"
"Because its been three months since your card worked."
"So why didn't you notify me, or turn off the service before cancelling my account entirely?"
"I don't know sir."
"So you won't turn my account back on?"
"No."
"Then why should I pay you?"
"Uh..."
I went round and round with them for an hour, with exactly no results. I'm now using Earthlink DSL...and I kind of like PPPoE, even if I don't get a static IP anymore.
Re:The mom and pop isp's dream. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The mom and pop isp's dream. (Score:2)
Re:The mom and pop isp's dream. (Score:2)
Does make you wonder exactly what the economics of it was. Their price was decent, comparable to cable and their service was reliable (at least for me). So was this a case of simply not having enough customers, customers hogging bandwidth (I wouldn't believe this one, if so why didn't they just put bandwidth caps and offer tiered service?), to much profit going to the telcos for the lines, etc?
Re:The mom and pop isp's dream. (Score:2)
DirecTV Broadband has nothing to do with DirecTV satelite.
Re:Sad, but necessary (Score:5, Interesting)
This was not the problem. The main problem was having to do business with ILECs, which are monopolies that compete against us. A secondary problem was some not-so-bright management decisions, and not being able to offer value-added services (and collect additional revenue) because the main database system was designed by morons.
It is sad that we will no longer be able to get satellite TV here because a few people using DSL had to ruin it for everyone else by getting greedy.
Huh? DirecTV Broadband has nothing to do with DirecTV satelite.
Why can't people just take what they need, instead of running off with everything that isn't nailed down?
Because they're offered unlimited service.
Re:Sad, but necessary (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sad, but necessary (Score:2)
Re:Sad, but necessary (Score:3, Insightful)
No.
If we're going to take this simplistic view of their business model, let's at least think it through to a minimal level. First of all, you lose a number of potential customers who fear going over the limit (or know for a fact that they will). Secondly, you have additional costs associated with such things as having to constantly tell people how close to the limit they are and having customers dispute how much they've transfered in a given time period. You'll then lose those customers who you don't give in to and they'll generate significant bad press. You can also forget collecting the last month's bill from many of those who leave who will decide that since your company is so incredibly greedy, you deserve nothing. Next, for the few customers you have left, most of them will switch as soon as an otherwise comparable service without the 10GB limit becomes available to them.
So, after cutting off potential revenue, alienating otherwise loyal customers, racking up huge numbers of "uncollectable"'s, and generating enough bad press to make Arie Flischer cry, your company's offices are raided by your creditors just before your disgruntled former customer burn your offices to the ground. Congratulations.
Caps work in very specific situations: when you have a monopoly on high-speed internet access, when your customers are perfectly happy to take limits on their use, and when any potential competitors also have similar limits. A better idea would be to introduce a tiered pricing scheme with limits on speed, as opposed to data transfer. A service at around $20 per month with speeds only slightly higher than dial-up would slaughter the dial-up market (same cost, better speed, no dialing up/missed calls/annoying modem noises), a $50 tier with speeds similar to what we see today in home broadband, and one or two higher end services with speeds that go up along-side the price; perhaps in the $100 and $200 ranges. This effectively limits your customers' total monthly data transfers without imposing limits that would increase costs to you while alienating your customer base.
But then again, any business with a single and specific method of generating revenue is pretty much doomed to fail anyway. Diversification is a necessary component in any business model, along-side strong management and adaptability. While you may wish to turn a cold shoulder to the so-called "power users", I would much rather solve the situation by putting a well thought out tiered pricing scheme in place, and modifying it once a year to ensure costs stay in line with revenue.
Then again, I'm a "power user" who eats up plenty of bandwidth (no comments about pr0n/warez/etc necessary, I'm talking about dBase transfers), yet I pay Comcast twice as much as their average home user, and do so without complaint - as I suspect many "power users" would do if offered the chance. The simple lesson to be learned is this: don't restrict your customer, give them more options to choose from and ensure that any choice they make benefits you. You come out looking like the good guy while still maintaining a strong revenue foundation.
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
Re:DSL? (Score:3, Informative)
Marketing had some package deals going on, and I think they managed to get combined billing working, but other than that, no, DirecTV Broadband has nothing to do with DirecTV.
Re:DSL? (Score:3, Interesting)
It was about that same time that (IIRC) Rhythms went under. Anyway, I remember I had something like 30 days to find another DSL provider because Telocity (now DirecTV) would no longer run on my Rhythms line. Too bad -- because it was SDSL 1500/1500. Pretty nice speed actually.
Anyway, I ended up going to Speakeasy and haven't had a problem. I pay twice as much, though -- almost 100 bucks a month.
*shrug*
So it goes.
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
They have one very important feature in common: Neither of them are cable.
DirecTV is competing directly with the cable companies (and doing damn good job of it, IMHO). The cable companies, what with their government-mandated monopoly on coax, gets to offer "deals" where you can subscribe to digital cable for X years and get "free" (or at least "cheap") cable internet service. DirecTV wanted to compete against this with their own broadband offering, but DirecWay is still too pricey and still (for the most part) requires USB. So they decided to offer DSL service as well. The theory was that, just like with Cox/Comcast/TW/etc, you could have TV and broadband on one bill. That, and you get to continue to tell your local cable company to sit on it and rotate.
Anybody know when EarthLink will lower the price of their DirecWay prices and/or offer ethernet hardware?
Re:My father is a DIRECTV CEO (Score:2)
Re:My father is a DIRECTV CEO (Score:2)
Maybe they're going out of business because of the high salaries of all the CEO's they keep on board?
Re:My father is a DIRECTV CEO (Score:2)
Yes, I was aware of that, just didn't put a winky at the end
And I assume the original poster was a troll, their father probably flips burgers at the local Big Kahuna
Re:Go figure (Score:2)
Re:Go figure (Score:2)
Re:pretty friendly provider (Score:2)
Re:Linux support? (Score:4, Informative)
As far as I know, you're correct, DirecWay and DirecPC are Windows-only (maybe Mac too, but I'm not even sure of that).
As opposed to DirecTV Broadband, which has UNIX installation instructions in the manual.
Re:NOW I'M PISSED (Score:2)