DSL follow up story... -- MIDRANGE-L

This was just sent to me....I signed up for DSL through a different provider
about 1 week ago.  Wonder how long I have til they call it quits...


A Dark Day for DSL

By Carol Wilson
mailto:carol_wilson@ziffdavis.com

Thousands of digital subscriber line customers were left to
scramble for service Thursday as NorthPoint Communications
abruptly ceased operations, unable to raise even enough money to
help its customers change service providers.

NorthPoint customers huddled together electronically, waiting
to see how long it could take the companies that sell
connections to NorthPoint to take those connections down and
put customers out of service. Customers in Southern California
were the first to go, but by day's end, nearly every area had
felt the impact. As a DSL wholesaler, NorthPoint operated the
DSL equipment and a backbone network and sold DSL service to
Internet Service Providers, but bought local lines from
incumbent telcos and Internet connections from a variety of
companies.

For a NorthPoint deathwatch, try
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXb5

The ungainly demise of one of the DSL industry's former high
fliers is being viewed by some customers as a warm-up to the day
when NorthPoint's DSL colleagues, Rhythms NetConnections and
Covad Communications, are similarly forced to shut down. If
anything, however, NorthPoint's closing illustrates how
desperate many businesses and consumers are for broadband
access and how dear they hold that service.

Which is why the broader DSL market outlook is positive:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXc6

Anger and resentment roiled across the Internet, directed at
NorthPoint and at other telecom companies deemed at least
partially responsible for its problems. That list included AT&T,
which bought NorthPoint's technology assets but didn't want its
customers, and the Bell companies, largely blamed for making
life difficult for any new competitor by delaying access to the
copper lines used to provide DSL.

Many user groups focus on DSL. One of the most extensive is at:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXd7

Robert Marsh, CEO and president of EV1, which operates a Texas
ISP called Everyone's Internet, and RackShack, a Web-hosting
service, was angry enough to create a Web site,
www.dslfight.com, encouraging the 110,000 former NorthPoint
subscribers to call, e-mail or write key executives at
NorthPoint, AT&T, the Canadian Bank of Imperial Commerce and
federal and state regulatory offices.

To vent your anger, go to the dslfight site:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXe8

A picture of EV1's emergency-response team helpng to migrate
its customers:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXfA

Many ISPs and customers who got DSL service through NorthPoint
were angered that the company held out hope until the very end
that someone would come along and provide funding or buy its
customer base. In truth, however, NorthPoint CEO Elizabeth
Fetter was pretty clear in her Web site letter of March 22 that
the company's efforts to secure financing had failed and that it
was likely to cease operations very soon. NorthPoint even issued
an unusual clarification of the announcement of its sale to
AT&T, to stipulate that the $135 million purchase didn't include
NorthPoint's customer base, which was about to be stranded.

Fetter's letter appears as the NorthPoint home page:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXgB

More details on the dismantling of NorthPoint:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXhC

For its part, NorthPoint provided a blanket letter of authority
that would allow its ISP customers to swap their customers'
service to another provider, either a Bell company or a CLEC.
"But it's a complicated process," admitted Marvin Wamble,
spokesman for NorthPoint. In many cases, a technician would have
to physically move a customer's line from a piece of equipment
within a NorthPoint collocation cage at a telephone company
central office to another piece of DSL equipment -- known as a
DSL access multiplexer, or DSLAM --  operated by another
competitive carrier or the incumbent telephone company.

How does a DSLAM work?  Find out in this tutorial:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXiD

The complications don't stop there, however. The equipment at
the customer's site is specifically compatible with a given
DSLAM, so changing DSLAMs means changing the customer equipment
as well. While some CLECs use the same DSLAMs as NorthPoint, a
Copper Mountain customer, most incumbents used either Alcatel or
Cisco Systems DSLAMs. So even if there are multiple DSL
providers serving a given CO, there is no guarantee of any easy
swap.

On the Internet, however, former NorthPoint customers were
convinced that the incumbent telcos were deliberately making
their lives difficult by refusing to swap their circuits to
other CLECs.

Speak up!
Who's to blame for NorthPoint's demise?:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXjE

Late Thursday, Verizon spokesman Ells Edwards said that company
is "doing the very best we can" to try to help stranded
NorthPoint customers, including appealing to the backbone
service providers not to disconnect NorthPoint access lines
right away.

"We have been hit with a number of appeals to shut down
NorthPoint lines, and we are asking the backbone providers, if
at all possible, to not shut the lines down immediately,"
Edwards said. "We will facilitate getting these customers moved
to whatever degree we are able. To my knowledge, we are the only
incumbent actively seeking a solution to this problem."

One Florida-based ISP, DSLi, had already put previous experience
"rescuing" stranded customers of failing ISPs to work in
developing software that helps automate the process of changing
DSL service providers. The company starts by electronically
determining which of its customers are served by NorthPoint from
COs that are served by other CLECs, such as Rhythms, that use
the same DSL equipment as NorthPoint.

For those customers, DSLi can change service electronically by
contacting the other CLEC and providing relevant customer
information, such as the customer's IP address and the port
number on the NorthPoint equipment that serves that customer.
The new CLEC can then electronically submit that information to
the incumbent telco and get the DSL service switched with
relative ease.

"In theory, it could be completed within five days, but things
don't always go according to theory," admits Eduardo Bustamante,
executive vice president of DSLi. "But we definitely don't have
to go through the entire ordering system of the incumbent
again."

DSLi home page:
http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eF6j0Bzm1k0BNV0BCXkF

Where other DSL service providers in a given customer's CO use
equipment not compatible with NorthPoint's, DSLi will send out
new customer equipment and an easy software install kit. For
some percentage of customers that Bustamante can't yet give,
there are no other DSL alternatives because NorthPoint is the
only company providing DSL from their serving CO.

"It's going to be very hard for some people, because once you
have the service, it's very hard to lose it," he says.

Other ISPs such as MegaPath were proactively ordering new DSL
lines for the customers previously served by NorthPoint and
advising customers on how to get dial-up Internet access in the
interim period. MSN, meanwhile, was shifting customers to dial-
up accounts and offering to credit them for the purchase of DSL
modems and for service not received, as well as provide a $25
gift certificate.


Gary Feinstein
Sr. Strategy Consultant
Online Strategies Corporation
gary@online-strategies.com
ph. 561-239-7868


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