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Avvanta Communications Corp - open discussion forum. Share information with other users.
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 pinman$
join:2001-12-29
Seattle, WA
|  The End Of My Long Search For A Rockin' ISP? YES!
I am an @Home refugee- damn, I miss that old 4MB/s bandwidth! Since it's been capped at 1.5 MB/s and seems to be down as often as up, I thought I'd switch back to DSL even though it's rippin' expensive for comparable speeds.
I did my research over a long period of time and settle on Blarg as an indie ISP using my Qwest telco. Each time I called Blarg with questions I got straight through to a nice and knowledgeable human with NO HOLD TIME! Mark, who I think owns the business, spent as much time as needed with me- each time patiently answering all of my questions and not pressuring me into a sale at all.
After finally drawing the line with being screwed around with by national conglomerate nightmares I decided the extra dough would be worth it to get great service from a local company that EARNED my business and loyalty. Mark helped me assess my speed needs, encouraging me to start slower and then bump up if I need to because Qwest charges you to change down but not up- great tip Mark!
My account was created while I was on the phone, and as soon as I configured my email program my new Blarg email address was working flawlessly! This was literally only a matter of minutes! Mark also provided me with a local dial-up number that I can use anytime as back-up if needed at no charge- not that I'll ever need it based upon their amazing record of perpetual uptime...
The time from order to activation is tagged at 2 weeks- but Mark said that as soon as I receive the modem from Qwest I should be able to fire it up and let 'er rip! It was nice to let Mark set up the Qwest end of things for me- and not have to be on hold with Qwest forever getting it set up. THANK YOU MARK!
I decided to go with the 640/256 level of service ($51.95), and see how it feels- I know I've been spoiled by the old 4MB/s cable but those days are gone... It will be really nice to have higher upstream as I do run a private music ftp server for a few friends to leech off of me now & then and the @Home was capped at 128. I'm really eyeballing the 1MB/1MB but not sure if I can afford to shell out the $143 a month (rates are supposed to change next month I hear).
One really nice thing about Blarg is they don't meter the throughput- so I can download crispy SHN files of old Dead shows as fast as I can burn 'em- plus, they don't mind if I run my ftp server for non-commercial purposes either- I made sure I specifically asked that question. Sounds pretty good eh?
I will post again in a couple weeks and let you know the reality of things. in the meantime- if you are in Washington state you owe it to yourself to check Blarg out! | |
| TonyT59
join:2002-04-21
Seattle, WA | C'mon people show me the BLARG!!!!!!!!! I'm thinking my switching from MSN/qwest to BLARG!!! Msn has been horrible.. the service started out great but for the last 2 weeks there was a outage and then connection problems. I just want to know if BLARG!!! is a good ISP to go with. | |
| | 
genenius
Premium
join:2003-01-27
Kent, WA
| Re: C'mon people show me the BLARG!!!!!!!!! I just dropped MSN to go with Blarg! as ISP. I'm using Qwest DSL by the way. What's cool with Blarg! is that it took one phone call to find out what was available and the rep told me everything I wanted to know and was actually really nice. Since Blarg! couldn't take over my line right away, they set me up with a dial-up account (which I'm using right now) until the MSN service was totally dead. Then they're going to take care of taking over the service from Qwest, so they're taking care of everything for me. I can't wait to get hooked up with them because I've heard nothing but good stuff about them, plus you get a totally configurable Modem and I was told it also came with a router/4port switch, so that's money in the bag!
Yes, MSN has been horrible as far as customer service goes, and they were way overpriced for the simple services that they provide, so I'd rather put the money into a company who will be worth it. I can't wait! I'll let you know how it is once it's set up. | |
| K7AAY
join:2006-12-16
Portland, OR
| Down since Thursday, no explanation Been using Avvanta since they were Blarg.
On 12-14, their service went down, and have not come back up. No web site, no e-mail, other customers several hundred miles away from me report the same.
Not even an explanatory web page, which could easily be hosted elsewhere.
Their phones don't work, either.
I expect an ISP to be able to tell its customers when it's down for an extended time, and why. Redundancy and multi-homed connections is such a basic precept of the Internet that's it's a shock when an ISP fails to provide even basic service to its customers so dramatically. | |
| | jdmt
Premium
join:2002-05-06
Seattle, WA
1 edit | Re: Down since Thursday, no explanation I agree that it's unusual for an ISP to go down hard with no word at all, but given their long history of great service (I've been with them since 2000), I suspect there is something bigger going on.
The eastside suffered extensive damage in the storm and there are still hundreds of thousands subscribers without power. The fact that their support phone line says "all circuits are busy" is alarming and points to some major issue in their offices.
I'm not discounting the possibility that the owners/employees suffered some kind of personal loss in the storm and so am willing to give them some time to figure things out before jumping ship.
Does anyone have any additional info? | |
| | | K7AAY
join:2006-12-16
Portland, OR
| Re: Down since Thursday, no explanation Things always break... and professional comm facilities have multiple links with multiple facilities as a result.
That they don't have a backup out of area, even so little as to redirect their phone number to another provider with a recorded message, and don't redirect their domain and put up a web page giving status, tells me they don't care enough what their customers think.
This is the Internet after all, designed to allow redundancy and backup sites out of area. How much would it have cost them to have a reciprocal agreement with an out-of-area ISP?
Heck, redirecting avvanta.com to a blog page would cost nothing. | |
| | karenrif
join:2006-12-17
Bellevue, WA
| Found out from Qwest yesterday that Avvanta's phone number (425) 818-6500 is under the auspices of Broadwing Corp. Called Broadwing various times and was told various things. Have not been able to obtain status, other than confirmation that Avvanta is a customer of Broadwing's. Frustrating - no email for 3 days now and no way to get status updates. Am using hotmail as a backup in the meantime, but no way to see if I've missed anything important in the last 3 days on my main email address. | |
| | aack
join:2002-12-29
Seattle, WA
| Customer since 2000.
Add me to the shocked and dismayed list. With exception of this short forum post, no other information is avaialble.
I've got an entire family jonesing for their link, or at least acknowledment that it will magically reappear.
»www.justbroadband.org/reviews/698 | |
| | | 
longtimeblargger
@comcast.net
| Re: Down since Thursday, no explanation I am also dismayed but, to be fair, the almost the entire city of Bellevue has been without power for the last few days.
»www.ci.bellevue.wa.us/bellevue_w···news.htm
Amazingly, Bellevue downtown was without power until yesterday.
PSE says that 300k customers are still without power.
»www.pse.com/InsidePSE/serviceAlert.aspx
I assume that is the reason for this prolonged Avvanta/Blarg outage.
Even so, I agree that it is unacceptable that Blarg is unavailable by phone and has not redirected their website to provide information for their customers. Even under these extraordinary circumstances, for Blarg to go completely quiet and dead is disturbing. | |
| | | |
Geff
@blarg.net | My dsl line is back! Just waiting for email & my domain now. | |
| | | K7AAY
join:2006-12-16
Portland, OR
| Re: Down since Thursday, no explanation From avvanta.com's home page, a response, FINALLY:
> Having a venue to address these concerns is good, I'd like to thank
> BroadbandReports and everyone posting in this thread.
> We do have contingency plans and they have been more than sufficient in
> the past. These fail safes were insufficient, to put it mildly, for a
> state of emergency. Now that we have all faced this level of pure
> destruction in our hometowns and communities our approach to the 'what
> if's' will be much more encompassing.
> The office where our network is housed suffered heavily with downed
> trees and pieces of equipment housed on the roof were brought offline
> by flying debris.
> It's impossible to plan for every potential calamity that may befall a
> singular piece of equipment, as the recent crane falling in downtown
> Bellevue can illustrate.
But, windstorms happen, several times in recent memory.
Five weeks after the Skagit River floods, there's a
clear lapse in redundancy shown once more.
> One of the future improvements to our network is a second NOC at a
> geographically different location for additional redundancy. This plan
> was put into effect months ago. Due to how long it takes for decent
> pipes to be installed installation was delayed until Friday the 15th.
Will those pipes reply on Qwest-provided infrastructure
at all?
> Additionally, our VOIP phone system, will be supplemented with a
> regular land line that will be available to all customers wishing a
> status report.
Will that landline be at your primary location, or
will it be geographically separate for the sake of
redundancy?
> Open communication has always been at the heart of our philosophy as a
> business and as individuals. As we recover from this destruction and
> unroll the new services we've been preparing updates will be made to
> the main web site. If you have concerns please contact us via email
> (supp...@avvanta.com) or call (425.818.6500). Call volume will be heavy
> for the first 24 to 48 hours.
> Marc Lewis
> President
> Avvanta Communications | |
| jdmt
Premium
join:2002-05-06
Seattle, WA
| Avvanta Servers Down So, it appears that Avvanta has experienced a "Catastrophic Disk Failure" as stated by their voice mail. Mail and Web services are down, although DNS and everything else appears to still be OK.
It would be nice if they could throw up an informational web page or something...I hate when things go dark, which has happened in the past with them...see thread below.
»Down since Thursday, no explanation | |
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