MegaPath, Covad, Speakeasy Merger Closes Megaspeakovad? Speak-o-path? Back in June Megapath, Covad and Speakeasy announced their plan to merge, a deal that would have been a revolution for residential broadband customers back in 2001. But in 2010, all three companies have turned a cold shoulder on the residential broadband market, and instead primarily focus on the small business market -- making the news less compelling for many users. Still, the newly fused company dropped us a line today to note they've completed their merger, creating a "next generation Managed Services Local Exchange Carrier (MSLEC)." Combined, the company (which will retain the Megapath brand) serves 85,000 business customers.
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 Gami00
join:2010-03-11
Mississauga, ON | umm. neat?. | |
| | | Good for them Practically useless when they're still forced to deal with wholesale ILEC pricing, and therefore forward that cost to the small business base served, but at least there's still "competition" out there. | |
|  | | | Re: Good for them but what isn't said; is that COVAD and MegaPath both OWN DSLAMs they only realy on the ILEC for the line and for the total resell package in more "rural" areas. The major markets they don't worry about it. But they have to deal with the ILEC retail price. businesses are not going to jump to something that's higher priced just because the company says "we're focused on you" yah they are on that $$$ coming in each month.
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www.twopugsbrand.com Kosher, Vegan, and Organic Certified Dog and Cat treats/foods and other products! www.etsy.com/shop/snakx4u/ Organic, Kosher, Gluten Free, Vegan Human Baked Goods | |
| | | | | Re: Good for them Back in 2001, Speakeasy felt their premium service offerings and industry-leading network and customer support would give them an edge. And well.... Somehow they haven't merged along with the other CLECs mentioned in this article. | |
| | | | | | Re: Good for them they did merge with them. But their service went down hill. Their CSRs are nothing but assholes and take their job for granted. Can't blame them for nobody wanting to do business with them. I think its funny for a company to do all their business on 1 800 number. Sounds fishy to me. Especially when you call BB and bitch about them and they say "who" we don't know of any Speakeasy. But it's funny they're listed at the same HQ when it comes down to it.
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www.twopugsbrand.com Kosher, Vegan, and Organic Certified Dog and Cat treats/foods and other products! www.etsy.com/shop/snakx4u/ Organic, Kosher, Gluten Free, Vegan Human Baked Goods | |
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Reviews:
 ·MegaPath
 ·Verizon FiOS
| pffft they were great when the most they offered was single T1s and ADSL service. now it's just a joke. when we were setting up a PRI handoff, everything appeared to go smoothly with the tech. then we unplugged the adtran to move it in it's permanent home, and all settings were erased. somebody forgot to hit save! tried calling back and everyone was gone. we were on their enterprise support, which nobody had a contact number for. we were told we would have to wait until monday at 9am to get it fixed. when we finally got somebody to help us, they claimed it was our pbx. sure enough, when we got someone who knew what they were doing, they confirmed that nothing was saved.
hell, they didn't even know what equipment i had at one point. the lady in support told me to plug in to port 5-8 on the back. i told her there was just 1. she thought i had some other model and told me she'd have to send somebody out to confirm this and it would be a charge for it. that was also when i had dual bonded T1s where 1 was in error mode 75% of the time.
i have their 10/10 EoC service and that wasn't working for the first 4 months. i would only have 2 of the 3 pairs lit giving me a max of 6.6Mb. | |
| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
 ·RoadRunner Cable
·Comcast
| Ethernet anyone? Seems like the new combined company will be trying to do EoC (Ethernet over Copper) plus hosted voice as their primary market. EoC will run between 3 and 20 Mbps symmetric, with VoIP running over it. Pricing looks to be between $76 and $127 per megabit.
Phone pricing OTOH is quite aggressive, at least from the business perspective (IP PBX etc.); $28 per month per line with a free IP phone. In comparison, Comcast/TWC charge around $40-$50 per month per line, but they're a LOT cheaper on internet service, as long as it's delivered over cable. Fiber pricing is...meh...comparable, maybe a bit more or less depending on the situation. | |
|  kapilThe Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL | WTF... ...is a MSLEC? Or is that like "cloud"....it means everything, therefore no one knows what the fuck it actually means.
Also, "Ethernet over copper" is a fantasy...it's bonded DSL or T1, depending on the product. It's a stop-gap measure at best. Covad does not have a next-gen strategy and unless it comes up with one quick, it will die a slow death as T1 customers leave for higher bandwidth options.
...and I've long been a supporter of Covad and what it stood for.
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»www.VoIPTrunk.com | |
| | | | Re: WTF... COVAD owns a wireless network in the SanFran Bay area which it actually sells services on. They bought that a few years back. | |
| | | kapilThe Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL | Re: WTF... said by hottboiinnc:COVAD owns a wireless network in the SanFran Bay area which it actually sells services on. They bought that a few years back. Yes, they also operate wireless networks in some other cities....and the service is fantastic if you can get it. Pricing is also competitive for a business grade product.
They are too stupid to realize that their only options are as follows:
1. Get acquired
2. Expand wireless service, offer a consumer version along with the current business product.
3. Build out last mile infrastructure using fiber or coax.
1 and 3 are unlikely for a variety of reasons...#3 is possible but they are instead focused on firing good people, burning bridges with partners and forging ahead with reselling another provider's VoIP product even though they are a licensed CLEC themselves.
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»www.VoIPTrunk.com | |
| | | | | | Re: WTF... well you don't need to hire people when you outsource everything. That is what COVAD did...outsource and issue the lay offs.
I know their a Licensed CLEC but when you don't have to do something and can rely on someone else; you take that route. That is what they were and are used to after all this time. That is the issue with Indie ISPs. They never innovated and now are left scrambling around wondering what they're going to do next.
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www.twopugsbrand.com Kosher, Vegan, and Organic Certified Dog and Cat treats/foods and other products! www.etsy.com/shop/snakx4u/ Organic, Kosher, Gluten Free, Vegan Human Baked Goods | |
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|  wifi4milezBig Russ, 1918 to 2008. Rest in Peace
join:2004-08-07
New York, NY | said by kapil:Also, "Ethernet over copper" is a fantasy...it's bonded DSL or T1, depending on the product. Not sure what you mean by a fantasy, since it is a real product. What they do is deploy bonded TDM circuits from the LEC to the end user prem. Then they put a box on the end, which has a number of T1/DS3/OC3/etc ports on one side, and an ethernet port on the other. An example is that they take two T1's and provide the customer with a 2Mbps "ethernet" circuit (the rest of the bandwidth goes away due to overhead).
said by kapil:It's a stop-gap measure at best. Covad does not have a next-gen strategy and unless it comes up with one quick, it will die a slow death as T1 customers leave for higher bandwidth options. I agree for the most part. However, Verizon (for example) now offers wholesale finished Ethernet loops. This means that CLECs can offer higher bandwidth connections that customers are asking for, without dealing with the nonsense EoC products they are pushing now.
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"You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
-Abraham Lincoln-
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 whfsdudePremium
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC
 ·T-Mobile US
| Be Competitive They could be competitive and offer cutting edge IP services like IPv6.
Would also be awesome if they would work with Earthlink to provide better speeds over ADSL2+ LPV.
Seriously 8/1 is a joke. That should at least be bumped to 15mbits if lines support it. | |
| | kapilThe Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL | Re: Be Competitive said by whfsdude:They could be competitive and offer cutting edge IP services like IPv6. Would also be awesome if they would work with Earthlink to provide better speeds over ADSL2+ LPV. Seriously 8/1 is a joke. That should at least be bumped to 15mbits if lines support it. Huh?
How does IPv6 help them be more competitive? End users don't care about IPv6.
The ADSL2+ DSLAMs that were used to offer the 8/10/15 Mpbs tiers + "LPV" were financed by Earthlink....and in Exchange Earthlink got to go to market with that product first. And we know how that experiment turned out, based on Earthlink's current condition.
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»www.VoIPTrunk.com | |
| | | | | Re: Be Competitive ELink still is offering that product though. | |
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 CheesePremium
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL
kudos:1 | lame and lamer | |
| Reviews:
·MSN
| I used to be a Speakeasy customer-they were great! They had a $24.95 a month deal for Los Angeles area subscribers.
1500/384 DSL with a static IP address. I actually found I could get two static IPs at no increase in price, so I did.
Unlike the alternative available at the time (2000/512 Adelphia Cable) the DSL was rock solid.
Alas, when I moved the rate would have doubled, and Cox Internet was available in Providence, RI so I left Speakeasy. Unfortunately, they also left us home customers as well.
Ironically, a company I consult has two T1s, one from Covad and one from Megapath. I used different companies because I wanted multiple providers. I guess I'm not any more.
Guess who the runner up to Megapath was? Speakeasy.
Of course, the one time any of the T1s have gone down it was Verizon's fault-and they took 3 days to repair it. | |
| | | Hmm.. After I read this today, I looked if service was available and it was for a T-1 line so I called and for a 3mb up and down was 315 $ a month no installation fees and includes the loop charge in the price , however there is a 2-3 yr contract plus I told them about the situation I had before with AT&T wanting to charge 15k to build out to me Megapath is willing to cover the cost to get me setup, I long to play multiplayer and MMO games again plus Hulu, You Tube and my game mods, what you guys think should I jump on this deal? | |
| |  LightSPremium
join:2005-12-17
Greenville, TX
·Time Warner Cable
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Hmm.. Honestly, it all depends if you have the money.
Me, personally, with $315/mo you can pay a car payment, a chunk of your rent, or any other assortment of bills.
3/3 for $315 is meant for small business--not residential use.
but. if they'll pay the setup (get it in writing) and you can afford it, I don't see why not. | |
| | | | As long as you can afford it. For residential use DSL (any variant), cable (CATV) is enough and stable. Well, it depends on where you live and how your area is taken care of. It differs from region to region. | |
| | Reviews:
·MSN
4 edits | said by Firefly2003:After I read this today, I looked if service was available and it was for a T-1 line so I called and for a 3mb up and down was 315 $ a month no installation fees and includes the loop charge in the price , however there is a 2-3 yr contract plus I told them about the situation I had before with AT&T wanting to charge 15k to build out to me Megapath is willing to cover the cost to get me setup, I long to play multiplayer and MMO games again plus Hulu, You Tube and my game mods, what you guys think should I jump on this deal? I assume you are talking about Speakeasy's 3 meg Business Ethernet service. It's actually an XO Communications product, sold by Speakeasy. It's made up of four 768k symmetrical dry DSL lines that feed into a concentrator. It works fairly well-and the redundancy is great-but it's NOT a T-1 (it has the 20% bandwidth overhead of a DSL), though it does come with a service level agreement.
»Full T1 vs Business Ethernet 3x3Mb (bonded) | |
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| | Heres some more... CoMegaEasy.
SpeakMegaVad. | |
| | | Well that simplified my firewall rules for the mail server. I firewalled ALL of Covad and Megapath years ago due to non stop spam from them, and the fact they ignore all complaints sent to abuse@
Speakeasy used to be pretty good about stomping spammers on their network, but lately they've done down hill as well, and I've had to start blocking them | |
| | | | Re: Well that simplified my firewall rules for the mail server. i had a similar problem when our main line was being DDoS and speakeasy "support" told us to deal with it ourselves. we need to go through every IP hitting our firewall and email the ISPs one by one. | |
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 CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County | I still have their residential DSL Love it although it is expensive. However - when I look at competitors and try and get a bit faster line with the SAME setup I have with Speakeasy - it is just as expensive as SE and with SE - at least I know what I have. The VERY rare need to call support, and a line that gets 90% at just over 12K feet from the CO and a line that just stays up. No line share and I can add in servers if I want and share the line (as long as I do not charge for it).
While I would love 10 down, 3 up - the only way to really get that in Ohio is cable and I will not install TW in my house ever again. And I don't trust U-verse either.
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Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain | |
| | | money bags would be nice if some rich bastard would come in & buy the company so that they can do real FIBER upgrades just to piss off the local cable & telcos in small niche markets. don't rich people need loss leaders so they can write off their tax wealth? | |
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