In computer news this week, 02/06/2002

In computer news this week, 02/06/2002

The bigger they are, the harder they fall - the current Internet Isp Mess

Right around Christmas I had a couple clients that were using the cable @home highspeed internet service suddenly lose their internet service and email for several days. One day the service just totally went away, leaving thousands of previously satisfied customers high and dry. AT&TBI bought out this service and there was a very painful transition for all @home customer to the new AT&TBI service, including having to learn a new browser, new email - and of course having to notifiy everyone in their address book that they now had still another new email address. Not to mention having to redo all their old favorite places. But it was an unplanned event - a crisis situation - and things went as bad as imagined.

So if two giant corporations currently involved in highspeed internet access decide to make a deal - wouldn't you think things would go much smoother - and if you answered yes - particularly when the corporations are Qwest and Microsoft - - your answer is - totally wrong - Gong! You are the weakest internet link ....

Last year Qwest and MSN announced a five-year partnership under which Qwest would close down its Internet provider service and encourage its half million customers to move to MSN. Qwest will be the DSL provider for MSN customers.

The MSN transition problem has been worst for customers who had been using Qwest's DSL service, which provides fast connections to the Internet.

In fact, this supposed carefully planned months in advance and financed by Microsoft transition has become the worst nightmare in many user's internet experience, with months of delays, lost critical emails, and unsatisfactory service.

The party line from customer support appears to be

"Both MSN and Qwest are two big companies," "Making this partnership work, we're experiencing some difficulties in migrating customers from Qwest.net to MSN." "We're working tirelessly with MSN" .

Duhhhhhhh .......... Beavis, we've seen this movie before

Additional problems include customers complaining that MSN emphasizes Hotmail, its e-mail service, which makes it impossible to subscribe to traditional Usenet news groups.

In its omniscience, MSN has provided a transition information website for new customers which has a lot of information that will probably drive you even more crazy - such as:

If you have a website on Qwest - you can't transfer your files directly to MSN

Your secondary Qwest email accounts will not transfer over, and you will lose your primary Qwest email address in 10 days, or maybe just one day ...

MSN does not support it's own Microsoft XT operating system, and there is a known problem with Windows XP. And it does not support networked computers.

You may have to pay more for the same service through MSN than you paid through Qwest and you might pay a $ 30 or more conversion charge.

And in this suddenly imposed transition, you will lose all email sent to you for days at a time - the Qwest reps will even tell you they can see your email - and even see who it's from - (George Bush; that company you've been interviewing with; Readers Digest "You may have won a Million Dollars " ..) but they can't retrieve it from their temporary mail servers - and neither can you. Nyah nyah.

So if you think all this sounds terrifying and frustrating - imagine how much worse it would be without their months of careful planning .

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 624-7230