response 84 of 176:

May 27 20:03 UTC 2001

(In fairness to Michigan, Covad's problems have nothing to do with Michigan,
and certainly won't hit Michigan any harder than they hit anywhere else.  The
slant of the Free Press article is odd.)

response 86 of 176:

Jun 3 01:57 UTC 2001

  What would be the ramifictions of joining with other Covad
customers to form a "not-for-profit DSL provider co-op"?

  If the management of Covad could be persuaded to provide
Grex with Covad's DSL customer list, then inquiries could be
sent to Covad's DSL customers asking if they would be
willing to join together in forming a "not-for-profit DSL
co-op".

  If there are enough positive responses from the inquiries
sent to the customers of Covad, then each prospective co-op
member would buy one "co-op share" of the prospective DSL
co-op, and then the accumulated funds would be used to buy
Covad's DSL operation.

  Conceivably the expense of participating with other
customers of Covad in the purchase and running of Covad's
DSL operation as a co-op, could be considerably less than
what Grex is presently paying indirectly to Covad for DSL
service, given that Covad's stock price has dipped as low as
it has. [1]

  Electric power co-ops are surviving [2,3]; why couldn't a
DSL co-op thrive?

  I don't know anything about establishing and/or running a
DSL provider co-op, but if any other Grexers do, then here
is your opportunity.

                          Notes

[Note 1.]
   "...Covad stock is down to $1.03/share, down 98%
   from its 52-week peak." [from response #17 by (krj);
   Apr 7, 2001; source cited:
   http://www.upside.com/Rex_Crum/3ac9e9aa30d.html]

[Note 2.]
   [Periodical article title:] Great service. (includes
   related article) (electric cooperatives) Mark Janick.
   Electrical World, Jan-Feb 2001 v215 i1 p47(3).
   [online database:] InfoTrac EF
   [InfoTrac online abstract:]
   Issues concerning the standard of services provided
   by electric cooperatives are discussed. It is
   emphasized that electric cooperatives offer better
   protection of their customers' interests. Several
   examples of cooperatives are used to prove the benefits
   of the industry.

[Note 3.]
   To provide a balanced view regarding the success of
   electric co-operatives, I am including a brief excerpt of
   an article which is somewhat pessimistic regarding the 
   future of rural electric co-operatives:

   [Article title:] Cross-country co-operation. (rural
   electric cooperatives vs investor-owned utilities)
   (American Survey) (Brief Article) The Economist (US), May
   3, 1997 v342 n8015 p22(1).[online database:] InfoTrac EF

   [Excerpt:]
   Rural co-ops stretch out over 73% of the land mass,
   have $60 billion in assets and serve 30m people in 46
   states. But according to Lester Thurow, a professor of
   economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
   and the keynote speaker at the National Rural Electric
   Co-operative Association's annual meeting in Las Vegas,
   their competitive advantage over private power companies
   has probably gone.

response 88 of 176:

Jun 3 18:26 UTC 2001

(The anti-trust settlement in 1982 was *supposed* to separate the
wire-providers from the service-providers.  I guess it failed.)

response 90 of 176:

Jun 5 02:51 UTC 2001

Yeah...unfortunately Merit's rates seem to be higher than most 
*commercial* ISPs, unless you're an educational institution.

Covad made fuckedcompany.com about a week ago.  Do we have new 
connectivity lined up yet?

response 92 of 176:

Jun 6 02:41 UTC 2001

I should remind everyone that we have until June 15th (or possibly July 2nd)
to cancel our contract with CoreComm, or it renews for another year.

response 94 of 176:

Jun 6 08:08 UTC 2001

I can't find anything in the contract about penalties for breaking it.  I
suppose we could try to negotiate a new contract that goes month-to-month.

response 96 of 176:

Jun 6 09:59 UTC 2001

Apparantly some ISP resell Ameritech DSL, but a web search didn't reveal any.

response 98 of 176:

Jun 6 14:17 UTC 2001

I think my boss recently managed to order a symmetric DSL connection from
Ameritech, but I don't know the details.  You'd probably have to call and
talk to someone.  Their web page is very unhelpful.

response 100 of 176:

Jun 6 21:40 UTC 2001

  Robert Cringely, host of the documentary "Triumph of the
Nerds" on PBS, has two sites which I found informative
regarding the business side of the DSL business, of which
the following are excerpts:

    SEPTEMBER 14, 2000
    Through an ILEC Darkly
    How DSL Works and Might Even Make Us Rich
    By Robert X. Cringely

      I spent some time recently at Covad, the largest DSL
    networking company in the U.S. Covad is my DSL provider,
    though I have at other times had DSL service from
    Northpoint Communciations and Pacific Bell. The reason
    for our meeting was simple: I had no idea how DSL really
    works.  [...]  [Robert Cringely's essay continues at the
    following site:]
    URL:
    http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20000914.html

    FEBRUARY 22, 2001
    Sorry, Wrong Number
    Why Your Phone Company Hates DSL
   
    [...] Everyone I know would like a faster Internet
    connection. That's the attraction of DSL, which is the
    fastest connection at a good price that most of us can
    get. Yet DSL is to many people a disappointment because
    it can be so hard to get in the first place and often
    hard to keep running. Both of these problems can be
    traced back to a source that isn't your ISP and
    probably isn't your DSL provider, either. The problem
    is your phone company. [...] It appears to me that the
    ILECs are for the most part treating their DSL service
    as a loss leader. [...] Why not hold that money-losing
    installation a few more months until all the DSL CLECs
    are dead, then raise prices? [...] [The entirety of this
    essay by Robert Cringely can be read at the following
    site:]
    URL:
    http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010222.html

response 102 of 176:

Jun 15 23:11 UTC 2001

Umm, calling ``all of the ISPs'' is almost certainly not the right approach.
For example, I really don't get the impression that Earthlink is really
capable of selling service that grex would find useful.

response 104 of 176:

Jun 18 04:40 UTC 2001

   Heh.  Unfortunately, that guarantee doesn't matter much--when they're
down I believe they sometimes give out a rebate.  I know several people
who've used E business data lines, and I don't think they came exactly
close to that kind of uptime.  However, to be fair I think that most 
places have problems with uptime claims.  The net is still young.

response 106 of 176:

Aug 7 18:42 UTC 2001

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-6801618.html?tag=nbs
 
"Covad foresees bankruptcy, restructuring"
 
...
> Covad said it does not expect a bankruptcy filing to 
> include its operating companies, which it
> expects will continue to provide service normally. 
> Covad said it had 333,000 customers in
> service on its network as of June 30. 

This sounds like it might be good news, but someone better trained in 
reading business articles would have to say for sure.

response 108 of 176:

Aug 12 01:24 UTC 2001

There may be an example or two I'm missing, but I can't think of any network
companies recently that have gone into bankruptcy and made it out alive. 
Northpoint got lots of publicity for shutting down their network.  Ricochet
(a provider of mobile wireless Internet access) more quietly shut off their
network a few days ago.  Rhythms, Covad's remaining non-RBOC competitor, sent
termination notices to all its customers a couple of days ago.  It is still
possible that somebody will buy Covad, or at least its network and subscribers
-- they should be able to do so pretty cheaply and without inheriting the debt
at this point, but it's starting to seem a lot less likely.  The companies
I've seen being bought even recently have tended to be bought for pennies on
the dollar well before they get into bankruptcy.