Flashcom's Verizon customers sold at $100 a head by dru Wednesday 04-Apr-2001 This is contrary to earlier reports here from users, that 2000 of Flashcom's customers with Verizon were forgotten or stranded without releases to Verizon allowing them to get a new ISP. The lines are being duly released by the court, so this is good news - perhaps.
On Tuesday, In Santa Ana, CA Federal Court, Judge John E. Ryan approved the sale and transition to Moon Global Internet of Torrance, CA of the remaining Verizon customers. MGN was the highest bidder, at $100 cash for each "successfully migrated customer." Other ISPs on the bidder list including M/M Internet, Linkline, and others apparent passed, at Tuesday's public hearing, at a court-required opportunity to outbid or overbid Moon Global. This would have extended the final sale, but they probably passed because of a few minor details, and therein lies the catch: As it is, Moon Global has from today, until next Friday, April 13th to contact, get re-signed contracts, and have Verizon move the customers to their own circuits. Keep in mind Verizon is already a tad busy these days with frantic orders from ISPs and CLECS for displaced Northpoint customer moves.
Also announced in court by Flashcom counsel Tuesday - Friday the 13th is D-day - Verizon has approval to shut down all circuits and Flashcom ceases all remaining technical operations, which are currently being financed by Covad as they complete the move of the Covad based customers.
There was also a reference to Northpoint that nothing could be done now with their customers, and getting them released was not possible as their contacts with Northpoint were gone, as the Flashcom folks soon will be. With no revenue to the debtor from Northpoint customers possible, the judge was urged to approve the sale of the remaining Verizon lines because the debtor needed the money to pay Verizon and close shop.
Ex-flashcom customers with line-shared Northpoint circuits may be the ones left up the creek in the end. Overhead through the pa system that was turned up way too high, "Nobody will pay costs to deal with line releases. I guess those folks are ----ed. Oh well...."
|
 | | D@mn straight!!!!! D@mn Stright dude OOL rules.....i waited 2 years for dsl and when flashcom came it suked 144kbs for $49.99 ...Man this sux... dsl is a pure disappointment....the best thing in the world is cable and btw Disturbed rules! : ) peace! | |
|  | | | Re: D@mn straight!!!!! hey geecoo
are u breathing? so? or stupified?
disturbed is great.
ed in west palm
who had his phoenixdsl via rhythms IDSL junker yanked when rhythms pulled out of the CO here in town without any warner, no migration to telocity no nothing | |
| | | | D@mn Stright dude OOL rules.....i waited 2 years for dsl and when flashcom came it suked 144kbs for $49.99 ...Man this sux... dsl is a pure disappointment....the best thing in the world is cable and btw Disturbed rules! : ) peace!
Well I agreed with everything ya said up until the "disturbed rules" comment. | |
|
| |  Now that's entertainment!
| |
| | | | Re: Now that's entertainment! I feel for the guy though, going on 11 months of no broadband for me. | |
|
| | Friday the 13th? Figures! Has anyone even heard of Moon Global Internet? Since I'm one of those 2000 Verizon users worth about $100, I guess I should try to contact these guys ASAP. Anyone with a lead on contact info would be appreciated. | |
| | | | | | Latest name on the ISP from Flashcom??? WebUniverse which has a web site soliciting Flashcom customers and acting like it has been appointed to take over!!!! What happened to Moon Global? Bankrupt already!!!!! Did the court authorize WebUniverse or are they mooners? | |
| | | telias
join:2001-04-28
Chino Hills, CA |  Re: Friday the 13th? Figures!
I currently have 768/128 and with Flashcom it was about ~700/~100, not bad, since the switch...I have 238/60 on a good day. I've called, left email and tried everything but a carrier pigeon and rarely does someone get back, and all they have to say is "We're wroking on it...". It's been going on for 3 weeks now and I'm about ready to jump ship.
In short, look for someone else. | |
|
| | | Anon | Re: Cancelled, but still Green/Green/Green Do you really think anyone at Flashcom cares any more? Expect a shutdown as soon as Covad feels they've saved as many lines as possible from them. They are on life support now and the idiots are in charge of the asylum.
Don't expect a line release unless you go there in person and get by the security guard at the front door. | |
| | |  jdmurrayPremium
join:2001-03-02
Huntington Beach, CA
 ·DSL EXTREME
| Re: Cancelled, but still Green/Green/Green My DSL provider is Verizon (GTE), not Covad. (If it were Covad then I would have switched to Speakeasy.) And it seems that come April 13th Verizon will finally down all of Flashcom's DSL circuits. I just want mine down *now* so I can jump to another ISP and not have to wait another week. | |
| | | | | Anon | Re: Cancelled, but still Green/Green/Green This has nothing to do with Covad. Only that Covad is basically paying the salaries of those still left at Flashcom. Covad is the main representative of the creditor group. What Covad says...goes
GTE being active is just a side benefit to Covad's generosity. You will likely be migrated towards Moon whatever prior to that time. | |
|
| | Press Release: New DSL ISP Announced... For Immediate Release.
4 April 2001
Venice Beach, CA
# # # #
"Organizers of an innovative new Internet Service Provider (ISP), operating on Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) circuits announced their roll-out and business plan today at a press conference in Venice, CA."
"We are proud" said President Thum Suh King, "to initiate service by the Golden Moon Lucky Swan Red Star Broadband and Noodle Company."
"Blah blah blah blah yadda blah yadda....."
# # # # | |
|  nickbStill Waiting For My Flashcom Rebates
join:1999-07-10
Brooklyn, NY |  I tracked down Moon Global
They've made a number of acquistions of ISP's in the past. | |
| |  dru
join:2000-09-14
Corona, CA
| Re: I tracked down Moon Global "They" appear to be one person, a Mr. Munir Moon. According to what I heard, he didn't even want to shake hands with the other ISPs that were there.
But I will tell you that the guys who ran Interworld and Clubnet, two of their acquisitions, knew their stuff and ran tight networks. I don't know how things are now, but a few years ago, you would have had a hard time finding anyone complaining about anything with either company - except perhaps they don't have the lowest prices.
[text was edited by author 2001-04-04 20:55:55] | |
| | | | Thanks! I just sent them an e-mail and I received a response in less than 5 minutes. I was told to go to www.webuniverse.net and fill-out the migration form.
I'll let you know. | |
| | | | |  Re: I tracked down Moon Global
who says basically that they are no longer providing DSL.
The letter says:
"WEBUNIVERSE.net, a MOON GLOBAL NETWORK company has
agreed to purchase your account starting April 2nd."
I've never heard of WEBUNIVERSE.net, or MOON GLOBAL NETWORK.
Does anyone have any info on this ISP
besides the info at their website at
»www.webuniverse.net ? | |
|
| | Anon | Here's a story about a whole new industry that is popping up. I know. I tried to get part of the action.
1) Company like flashcom falls on hard times and begins shutdown process. Some of the assets of this company can be quite valuable if you reduce the overall cost of support.
2) This was our plan. Which I will bet is not unlike the plan of mr moon.
Purchase the lines from Flashcom. We were willing to go as high as 50 a line and not 100 a line. The fact is that there are really only about 1700 of these lines still active in the Flashcom world.
Once you have purchased the lines, all you need is a colocation space (preferrably at Exodus where they simply move the x-connect to your equipment) Equiped with something like a used Redback SMS500 which will cost you a few bucks (25K say on the 2ndary market) Since all the GTE lines are based in Southern California, you get a single DS-3 from GTE and group all 1700 customers on a single pipe. (this is no big deal since GTE's JADE release of their PVC manager will handle up to 2400 PVC's on a single circuit. We routinely ran 3500 PVC's on a single connection to Covad. (and you say DSL isn't shared and oversubscribed...HA)
Once you've done this, you could easily make the transition in one fell swoop to migrate all the customers from Flashcom to ISP-X. Here's the really kewl part.
Lets say that the average GTE customer is paying 49.99 a month. Lets say that there are 1500 customers which you end up paying for (remember, he only pays for those that migrate). Lets say that you pay for 150K for your customer base and 50K to get you up and running in a new colo. Lets say that your DS-3 and bandwidth charges are about 5K per month. Thats and investment of 225,000 for the first 5 months of servicing these customers. At an average of 49.99 a month in charges on 1500 customers, (appx 75K per month in revenue) then the ROI is at the end of month 3. Everything past that is GRAVY.
Ok, but what about phone support and all that stuff. Well you outsource it to someplace like the Sutherland Group in San Diego where Telocity outsources to. You pay say 5 a month per subscriber (7500) and then you pay a few more a month to critical path to run your mail and news services.
So basically, after 3 months, you have a money making engine which will turn over just over 50 grand a month with little or no administrative cost or expense.
Now you may be thinking...ewwww robber baron. But honestly, this may be one of the few companies offering DSL which may actually make money. This is why the little mom and pop shops focusing on ONE market can and will survive. Its the NETWORK which becomes the problem. Its the EXPANSION into new markets which sucks up capital.
So for you GTE customers which I wish had become MY GTE customers, good luck. Your services should be good. Your customer base had the least number of problems and the lowest support costs. I would feel comfortable moving my service to moon global. You're a hell of alot better off with them than you were at Flushcom.
And to Peter Moon. I hope that rumor about RR attempting to extort an additional 200K from you for network operating expenses wasn't true. If it was, I'd have to change my opinion of him from just plain stupid to down right criminal.
The Truth shall set you free. But you'll still need a line release form to get away from Flushcom. | |
| | |  deltat2000Timor Omnis AbestoPremium
join:2000-04-13
127.0.0.1 | Re: To deakonblues2k........ROI in 3 months Gee didn't I hear somewhere that all you isp's were just losing tons of money to provision us......that you all didn't make a dime for at least 3 years?
Please reply!
--
The Future Is Purchased By The Present! | |
| | | | | Anon | Re: To deakonblues2k........ROI in 3 months You know Delta you are one ignorant son of a gun. You have no clue. You have no brain. You got nada. Read something other than the funny pages.
AND I QUOTE MYSELF:
This is why the little mom and pop shops focusing on ONE market can and will survive. Its the NETWORK which becomes the problem. Its the EXPANSION into new markets which sucks up capital.
Delta you just suck. | |
| | | | | deltat2000Timor Omnis AbestoPremium
join:2000-04-13
127.0.0.1 | Re: To deakonblues2k........ROI in 3 months Would you not consider your last post rather abusive?
Or are you always so cordial to people who post differing opinions here.....ummmm are you a republican by any chance?
In the mean time I hear this in the background for you soon......Guide......Guide.....Guide.....Guide.....Guide, why doesn't my email work.....Guide.....I can't get in my chat room....Guide.......guide......guide.....
--
The Future Is Purchased By The Present! | |
|
| | |  sporkmedrop the crantini and move it, sisterPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ | Think about it... Customer costs $50 and is UP and RUNNING. Great bargain...
Flushcom paid $200 to install $200 for modem, and god knows how much time spent following the order to completion. Oh yeah, and advertising...
If every ISP could spend only $50 to acquire pre-qualified customers , well, there'd be a lot less bankrupt ISPs. | |
| | | | JPCass
join:2001-01-23
Denver, CO | said by deltat2000:
Gee didn't I hear somewhere that all you isp's were just losing tons of money to provision us......that you all didn't make a dime for at least 3 years?
I haven't seen an answer to that yet...I believe it's that the expensive and difficult part of the provisioning is already done in the case of the established customers they're buying. The customer line and router are in place, etc. It was providing the expensive install and router for free, or nearly free, that was pushing out returns on investment way into the future.
To hit a topic in a subsequent post...Does a company that builds a customer base like this really need to grow, other than by continuing to buy customers from other operations at an attractive price? Maybe one piece of that is that with the low-price players and market quickly evaporating, they can add new customers at a price that will allow them to recover their provisioning and install costs quickly enough for it to be viable, especially if they have a good reputation for which they can charge a premium. | |
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| |  justinAustralian
join:1999-05-28
New York, NY
kudos:7
IPv6
Business Connectiv..
Console/Handheld g..
Console Tech
Home/Office setup ..
| Re: I tracked down Moon Global I'm a little confused on some points..
• in the verizon world, you would not see the 49.99 - the customer pays that, the telco takes a chunk (they own the DSLAM, and the last mile) and you get peanuts.
• Where can you get a DS-3 worth of bandwidth AND cage space in a place like exodus for just $5k? even burstable 10mbit costs costs considerably more at Exodus, and thats Internet bandwidth - how about the costs of the DS3 from GTE as well. | |
| | | | | Anon | Re: I tracked down Moon Global Not so. In the beginning, PacBell created major issues because they wanted to bill for the loop, and we would bill for the ISP services. This did not work out very well. In the end, the ISP was charged a lump sum for the customer loop and the service.
As to the bandwidth and colo, there are alot of providers who have recently empty cages, racks and partials. The SMS500 is like a 5u unit and the supporting equipment such as a few sun Netra servers (for DNS and Radius) and out of band management would take up like 12-15u of space. This could easily be had in half a rack or less in a shared colo room. The bandwidth costs can be negotiated until day turns into night. The costs will obviously be varialbe and as such your monthly income will vary. However, a 50K buffer leaves a lot of room for bandwidth charges.
The KEY (and would have made this much more clearly had I known you were going to post this on the front page  ) is that without Advertising, without the staff that it takes to shepard an order through the provisioning and installation process, and without the need for expensive back end automated processes for billing, trouble ticketing, and accounting (all outsourced) DSL CAN be a profitable business. | |
| | | | |
| Re: I tracked down Moon Global ignore this dupe post
[text was edited by author 2001-04-05 13:23:41] | |
| | | | |
| said by deakonblues2k:
Not so. In the beginning, PacBell created major issues because they wanted to bill for the loop, and we would bill for the ISP services. This did not work out very well. In the end, the ISP was charged a lump sum for the customer loop and the service.
There's one point (at least) where your business plan doesn't make sense. You say that an "ISP is charged a lump sum for the customer loop and the service." While this was true in the past (when dealing with a CLEC), what you don't mention is that the CLEC would normally absorb most of the monthly cost of leasing the line from the ILEC... this amount is between $5 and $40 PER LINE, PER MONTH, depending on the ILEC and the location.
I know Northpoint was paying this amount per line because I worked at Northpoint, and talked to engineers who were able to provide hard documents proving it.
When you 'buy' the rights to these lines, I'm sure you are also buying the leases (what, the ILEC will simply start giving out copper loops for free?), which are substantial: between 10% and 80% of the cost of these $49/mo lines that you are charging your new customers go to paying the ILEC each month.
Better figure this into your business plan, which otherwise sounds OK, but a bit in the fantasy realm: there are many miscellaneous (some small, some substantial, like maintenance of those lines) which you are not taking into account. It still might work! 
comments? questions? let 'em fly...
cheers,
creep
[addition:]
I'm confused here... who is going to be the CLEC provider? I misunderstood you to be talking exclusively about old northpoint circuits, but now, after going over a few of your posts, I'm not so sure any more. The bottom line is, how much are you paying covad/rhythms/CLEC for the wholesale cost of maintaining the DSL line... remember, you are still relying on SOME company for the connection between your redback and the EU............right?? 
Something's not been thought of. Re-examine, my friend.
[text was edited by author 2001-04-05 13:45:24] | |
| | | | | | | | am i missing something? pardon my naivety here, i understand that you are all talking about the economics of buying up DSL customers, but i'm trying to follow a by-product of this conversation:
does the possibility exist that i could say talk to someone (pacbell?) and ask them if i can lease or buy my defunct northpoint circuit directly, in essence being my own DSL provider?
i'm already installed, i pay $x to the clec (?) for circuit and bandwidth and then whatever my normal ISP charges are...yes? no?
i'm sure they don't want to deal with every piddly customer directly, so i doubt this is a realistic scenario, but still... (can you smell the desperation? ) | |
| | | | | | | | Anon | Re: am i missing something?
HOWEVER there is nothing stopping you from contacting your ILEC (PacBell in this case) without the assistance of your ISP. Of course, from talking to many EU's who've tried this, it can be a very frustrating and unrewarding experience as they call dept after dept that may or may not deal with DSL and may or may not know anything about the CLEC DSL depts which are separate from the ILEC DSL depts. On the other hand I've also talked to some VERY determined customers who persevered and went very high up in the ranks of their ILEC to get results. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't.
There is one little fly in the ointment that comes to mind. All DLEC, be it a CLEC or ILEC, want an ISP. Some make themselves the ISP while others (most) let actual ISPs handle it. I'm not sure which way PacBell works when it comes to DSL. I know Qwest uses ISPs and has their own internal ISP dept, too. Maybe PacBell would be willing to deal with you directly but you still have to get them or someone else to release your line from it's current DSL status.
In the end you'll just have to call PacBell and see which way the wind blows.
Hope that helps a bit.
Visionnaire | |
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| | |  basshiveTrue-Playaz
join:2001-02-26
Waterford, WI
| I have to side with Justin here. 5k a month is a GROSS under-estimation of costs for co-location and bandwidth. 5k a month is like 50$ a month to the big dogs. Costs for that kind of pipe start along the lines of 2-3k for 2mbit and up. Nowhere the near the full speed a DS3 offers. Co-location is not chump change either. All in all the costs would really be much much higher then 5k.
I think this story is a nice fairy tail but in practice, its just that, a fairy tail. There are so many more aspects to the business then getting customers, bandwidth and location.
One company that seems to be doing things right is Flex.Com in Hawaii. If only more ISPs followed the same practices they do...
ohhhblahdee ohhhbladah...
--
..::drum and bass cannot be stopped::..
[text was edited by author 2001-04-05 10:28:33] | |
| | | | |
See 9 replies to this post | |
| | | dru
join:2000-09-14
Corona, CA | First, DeaconBlues' comments about a profitable future, and the new model where ISPs are built or grow on acquisitions of failed ISPs, is basically a good and sound concept. You will see a whole new breed of companies doing ISP consolidation, and moving forward serving existing customers without the debt and red ink run up by failed marketing and bad business plans.
But I also read in the post some of the bad planning that gets ISPs into trouble. The devil is in the details, and in the end, the Flashcom Verizon customers did not pencil out for most potential buyers and investors sponsoring a buyout through the court, because the numbers would not justify the real costs to set them up. While they claim 2000, we counted 1648 as of December 1st, and about 200-300 in attrition each month. In the hearing, the counsel for Flashcom estimated 1000 circuits could be migrated by April 13th, and I heard from Verizon today the number of live circuits is now under 1000. I think that it is optimistic to expect all will re-sign, and at best you can expect 500-600 of them to become the new ISPs paying customers. No matter how wonderful Moon Global might be, there will be a percentage that will say "screw you!" and go with their own choice no matter what.
I am going to explain why 500-600 customers do not offer the profit that DeaconBlues suggests is there. I do want to also make sure people reading this that what I lay out here does not apply to Moon Global, which has existing Verizon infrastructure, circuits, and adding these customers are probably profitable in their scenario, we will assume that they met Verizon's and the courts requirements to complete the deal. What I don't see is it working as a stand-alone startup.
One of the obvious issues in this business that I think gets overlooked is reaching critical mass, where you have enough customers to meet your expenses and cross into profitability. Everyone wants a piece of the action, everyone wants to run their own show, and what we have found is, the ISPs that are hanging in there want outrageous sums to sell their operation legitimately. They are profitable, but the employees pull up each day in new cars and the owners pull up in rusted pickup trucks held together by bond-o. This is because nobody has reached their target numbers, and the pricing wars have lopped off too much of the profit in the DSL market. (We still have Verizon undercutting their resellers in this market)
The small isp's challenge is not that they can't be profitable or have terrible business plans, but there are hundreds of them, duplicating efforts, each with a fraction of the number of subscribers on their backhaul circuits that they expected or can handle. There are hundreds of ISPs in this situation. And the ILECS are getting rich on multiple backhaul circuits, all at 20% utilization. You have to wonder why Covad never figured this out and actually walked all these "underperformers" to Zyan and CAIS.
In Verizon land, you charge $50 of which the phone company gets $32.50 and $2 for USF. So a typical ISP might squeeze a $15 per month gross profit. Then you have bandwidth costs which everybody outside of the business tends to overestimate actual traffic levels, but that's a different story. Add the usual support, email, news, and other overhead costs. But everyone forgets the backhaul costs. A DS3 can cost between $1600 and $4200 from ILECS, but add the meet-point mileage and then colo-center cross connect, and you can be at $4000-$5000. (Covad, Rhythms, Northpoint, and New Edge all provide delivered backhauls at about $4000) This monthly recurring cost should be divided by the number of live, paying customers.
While everyone thinks "hey, you can jam 2000 customers on that circuit, piece of cake!" and this puts the per head costs for backhaul at less than $2 per head. But it is the actual number of live customers affects your bottom line and monthly cash flow! The grim reality is, there are many ISPs with 300 to 500 customers on their Verizon T3's and this means the backhaul cost can run $10-13 per head. At least bandwidth can be scaled on a usage or per meg basis from colo centers, so the real bottom line killer is that backhaul.
It is really easy to see with colo space, bandwidth, equipment leasing, backhauls, cross connects, plus technical support, credit card fees (3%+),IP address management, mail and news services could easily run 10-12K per month. If you net 2000 subscribers it's worth it, but net 600 subscribers and at $49.95 at least, you're upside down almost 3 grand a month by my calculations, and that is if everyone pays and the "one man show" isn't drawing a salary from the operation. Actually, he'd need a good one from elsewhere to kick in the shortfall.
But Flashcom got $60K of your money, and there is still the circuit supercedure debt issues to get through with Verizon. They might float it for awhile but ultimately they can shut you off; they have you by the short and curlies. The only remaining unknown is how many of the remaining Flashcom customers are at premium service levels, ie, those left at Gold or Platinum that would greatly enhance the revenue figures if there are a healthy percentage. But, given the numbers provided by the court, it wasn't promising enough for anyone to bet the farm.
This is why this "deal" only appealed and worked for a few local ISPs who #1, already had ATM circuits, equipment, and ample space left to accommodate them, #2, have a working provisioning process in place to migrate hundreds of customers en masse.
The ultimate model that will work as DeaconBlues suggests is a well-funded company that takes this deal along with dozens each week, rolling up and consolidating ISPs that are in trouble or hopelessly overbuilt. The ROI could be there, but not given the realities of this particular Flashcom deal, starting up from scratch. If something looks too good to be true ($100 a sub)it probably is.
Finally, potential bidders were undoubtedly spooked that Verizon Online keeps extending their $39.95 per month, free camera, and free modem and installation "Big Deal". It was supposed to end in March, but now runs through the end of May. Given that Verizon now charges ISPs $200 for the modem, and $60 for the install, and most independent ISPs can't meet the $40 price for reasons listed above, Verizon sales will continue to be flat. All independent ISPs report sales have dropped to a trickle. It is uncertain what control Moon Global will have to retain customers after they are migrated. There is nothing stopping them from not paying their bill or sticking around for 30 days then switching to Verizon Online.
--
Longest sentence in the English language: "I do." | |
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See 8 replies to this post |
| | sporkmedrop the crantini and move it, sisterPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ | In this long breakdown, where are you paying GTE for each line? Has to be at least $30.
That changes your numbers around a bit | |
| | | | dru
join:2000-09-14
Corona, CA | Re: I tracked down Moon Global Verizon charges 32.50, plus USF (about 1.99)for Bronze Plus.
--
Longest sentence in the English language: "I do." | |
| | | | | | Anon | Re: I tracked down Moon Global Our pricing is similar. The key is that many of these customers pay MORE than the 49.99 a month. Many are paying upwards of 79.99 a month. Additionally, many of these customers have value adds such as additional IP addresses at 5.00 a month and so on.
The point is that IF you control your costs and IF you reduce your overhead as much as possible and you are still able to supply a stable product. Money can be made.
Many people will be doing this and many have already begun. Remember however, the key is the REGIONAL or single city ISP. is the key. Focus all support and capital in ONE area where word of mouth can be the most beneficial and costs can be controlled most effectively. | |
| | | | | | deltat2000Timor Omnis AbestoPremium
join:2000-04-13
127.0.0.1 | Re: I tracked down Moon Global
I hope I can pass this along to my friend in Mission Viejo when I am out there in a few weeks.....I am sure that they won't let you near their dsl....or their daughters..lol
Quote From Deak:
"All I need is a copy of icverify"
End Quote
Yea Right..........
--
The Future Is Purchased By The Present! | |
| | | | | | | | | Re: I tracked down Moon Global -------------------------------------------------
From deltat2000:
You know what we call people like you deak.......
-------------------------------------------------
COMPETITION | |
|
| | | Anon | I'm a little confused, Deacon. Your business plan doesn't sound bad but you are talking about two different things. On the one hand you're talking about buying accounts from failing ISPs. In the next breath you're talking about getting colo's, DS-3s, etc.. Are you trying to be an ISP, a DLEC, or both?
If you're trying to be a DLEC or both there's a HUGE flaw in your plan. You haven't figured in the cost of migrating the customers over to your colo's. To do these migrations you either have to hotcut the lines from another CLEC's block to your block or order a brand new line. Either of these choices have problems associated with them, take time, money and manpower.
So maybe I missed something. Care to clarify what you're trying to be? If it's just an ISP buying accts then it's fine. If it's more you've got a problem or two.
Visionnaire | |
| | | | | Anon | Re: I tracked down Moon Global Ok...one more time.
Simple concept. Customer circuits are really just loops and virtual circuit identifiers. The loop is ordered by the ISP from the ILEC (in this case Verizon) and the ILEC creates a virtual circuit provisioned to you via a dedicated DS-3 to where ever your equipment is located.
[ISP]---ds3---[LEC]---loop---[end user]
Simple. You provision a single DS3 to backhaul the regional traffic on. 1 DS3 can handle up to 2400 Verizon PVC's. (virtual circuits)
As to Mark Wing, I understand that your opinion is that if you want something done right...you have to do it yourself. The problem is that virtually all of the things that the ISP's are attempting to do have not been done by them before. Its much easier to outsource to the companies that have. Everyone is doing it...just ask Telocity.
And to my good friend Delta2000. People call me things like FRIEND, MENTOR, BUSINESS ASSOCIATE. You are an ignorant individual using inane logic. If I am a predator for attempting to save service for people who were disconnected by offering them the same service at the same price...
Then each and every company that picked up a line from Flashcom or Northpoint should be considered the same. Megapath, Telocity, Covad.net, Verizon...All predators. And who is to say that predators are not needed. In this time of economic uncertainty, many of the larger stronger players will no doubt consume the unstable leftovers.
Be thankful for those predators...they will provide your service tomorrow.
As to my money...I was not responsible for the debts of Flashcom. I worked for them and I did what I could while I was there. That's more than I can say for you.
Go away son....ya bother me.
- Foghorn Leghorn | |
|
 tbeymer
join:2001-03-31
Washington, DC | Didn't Even get a Kiss...
Oh Well... I've already got my Verizon Online kit and have swapped out Northpoint's copper so I can at least use their inside wiring. Now all I have to do is wait 15 more days for my SRD. On the bright side, I have two weeks to calm down and appreciate a slower pace... | |
| | dru
join:2000-09-14
Corona, CA | Re: Didn't Even get a Kiss... Besides the $100 to Flashcom, the successful bidder has to assume certain post-partition debts on the circuits so it makes the transaction much more expensive to the bidding ISP than the $100 sounds.
Still, it is a sobering indication of the current state of the industry and current valuation of customer bases to the financial markets. Covad paid not a whole lot more than Moon for Covad business-class DSL lines, and most of that was in debt forgiveness / relief. Another ISP bid $50 a head for the Verizon and Pac Bell customers. And rumor had it a few weeks ago, that one company was considering buying the Verizon customers just for the modems. In other words, they'd send you a release and a call tag and you send back the modem, no interest in keeping service operating.
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Longest sentence in the English language: "I do." | |
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| | AOL Value Per Customer About 6 months ago, I read somewhere that each AOL subscriber was worth a little over $4,000. Alot more at that time then the typical free ISP users. This gives a new meaning to chump change. | |
| | jdmurrayPremium
join:2001-03-02
Huntington Beach, CA Reviews:
·DSL EXTREME
| Re: AOL Value Per Customer This is mostly due to the marketing information that is collected from each AOL user--and I don't mean voluntary customer surveys. They data-mine terabytes worth of user activity logs each month and sell the digested results as reports to advertisers. That'd make an AOL user worth something (to Madison Avenue anyway). | |
| | |  BradleyBad Graphics GhostPremium
join:2001-02-20
So Far Away | Surprise, surprise, surprise...! AOL is not the only "ISP" (if you could call them that!!) that is collecting mountains of marketing information "transparently". Even the world of broadband is being watched this way. Excite@home admittedly does this, with a twist. You can read about it here, scroll down to "Local Caching Servers". | |
| | | | jdmurrayPremium
join:2001-03-02
Huntington Beach, CA Reviews:
·DSL EXTREME
| Re: Surprise, surprise, surprise...! Ah yes, the "Local Caching Servers" section. They store frequently accessed web content locally (i.e., on servers closer to your location) to decrease wide-range net traffic. Great if you visit a lot of web pages that don't change frequently, but not helpful if you have cnn.com as your start page (as I do).
I especially like following item in the the bullet list of caching benefits:
* Far more comprehensive usage statistics than normally
attainable on the Internet; these statistics can be used
for tuning performance, tailoring the service, and
targeting promotions and advertising.
My translation:
[CYNICISM ON]
"We're doing it to help *YOU* get more from your Internet experience!"
[CYNICISM OFF]
Therez bucks to be made from those advertisers. | |
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| | Give me Flashcom or give me death... My loyalty remains. My Flashcom service was top-notch from day one and I will always be grateful for my employment there. There was a heart and soul there with a solid batch of talented people that I am glad I was able to work with. To those people, I will miss you all. To those people who griped & bitched about our service, good riddance. I know a Swing shift and a Tier II team that did all we could to resolve every issue we encountered. If anything good came out of the bankruptcy, it is that you don't have Flashcom to kick around anymore. What everybody knows now, is what we found out years ago being the first and largest national DSL provider. Some decisions did cause irreparable damage, such as, "receptioning" out the Tech Support queue. We never recovered from that and it killed many of us who were forced to do that. Take my word for it, we wanted nothing more than to get you up & running. To CEO, Richard Rasmus, I feel we had already taken on too much water and the final outcome was no fault of your own. You did make an immediate impact and all of us thank you for your respect and truthfulness throughout. I refuse to go to another ISP. There is no other. I am going cable. As long as I can still access my GaGush, life is good. God's Speed to All who were lucky enough to be a part of what almost was. | |
| | | | Re: Give me Flashcom or give me death... Way to go TieryEyed, you said it the way it was. We did a great top notch job from sales through customer care to tech suport. Many of us worked very hard to give the best customer service to all our clients to the best of our power. As for the tech team they did top notice work and worked many extra hours to try and help all you Flashcom Dsl customers contray to your beliefs. Flashcom did have many loyal hard working employees that went above and beyond for all customers and our heart and soul was in trying to get you all up and running.
We were the best and had the best of people working for Flashcom. TieryEyed you are correct the friendships that were made while working as a team will always remain, and never forgotten. You will be missed dearly.
As for all past customers of Flashcom the band wagon came fast and furious and you all wanted on and we thought it would work we sure all gave it a A+ effort.
God Speed to you TieryEyed you are special and a great Supervisor. Don't be a stranger. | |
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