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AkumalDave
Life's A Beach
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-20
Minneapolis, MN
| reply to lscott5
Still skeptical
If AT&T's intent was truly to move into the DSL market, WHY did they summarily disconnect 110,000 (presumably) paying Northpoint customers? Even at rates that might not have been realistic (my 784k/784k line cost $39.95 per month), they would have had some cash flow to help their "expansion plan".
I am still skeptical that that was the reason AT&T purchased the Northpoint assets. IMHO, more probable scenarios are that they wanted to move into local phone service (before their cable network was capable) or they wanted to kill off the competition and drive more customers to ATTBI (not that they had a presence in all the Northpoint markets yet - it took them 1 1/2 more years to get cable internet to my neighborhood).
Don't look to me for any sympathy, AT&T. You're the jerks who took over my cable company and immediately raised rates - discontinuing my grandfathered-in programming package that had survived two previous ownership changes. The same jerks who cut the cord on the Northpoint network when, I believe, the option to keep it alive existed. And, a division of the same jerks who assured me my 7/7 phone & internet dialup plan would NOT change, contrary to the press releases....then, two months later, cancelled the plan and offered me a more expensive one in its place. I chuckle every time I receive one of your "We hate to lose a customer..." and "We want you back..." letters. Sometimes, bad things happen to good companies. This is NOT the case this time around...
Dave | |
BrianDamage
We Are The Hounds From Hell
Premium
join:2001-08-14
Rowlett, TX
clubs: 
| If AT&T's intent was truly to move into the DSL market, WHY did they summarily disconnect 110,000 (presumably) paying Northpoint customers?
Because AT&T bought Northpoint's assets, not the subscriber base. They were prohibited from servicing the customer base already in place.
Their plan was to buy the network, let it go dark, and then turn it back up using their own circuits.
I know, because I had talks with some of their managers about it after the acquisition, and again mentioned the cable agreement as being an impediment to a DSL deployment, which they denied at the time.
Don't look to me for any sympathy, AT&T...
I think that if anything they deserve sympathy for not having the foresight to see that they would never be able to make a go of this, at least until after so much time had passed that the entire DSL network they purchased had become hopefully obsolete.
They were pretty damn stupid in what they did, and now they are writing it off, because that's all they can do.
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The rich get richer, the poorer get the picture, the bombs never hit you when yer down so low...some got pollution, others evolution, there must be some solution but I just don't know.... | |
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