NOT HOT!!! DirectTV DSL shutting down.

[alohaboy]

How did they lose so much money when they had 160,000 subscribers? Sounds to me like maybe the CEO's were getting too big of a paycheck. When will people learn to manage income properly and don't overpay CEO's?

simple, according to research, they lose tons of money when they sign you up, configure the DSLAM, and do the routing especially they have to share lines with local telcos. i've seen numbers that say you have to stay with them over 3 years in order for them to recover the cost. for cable, it's around year and a half. this would make the 160 thousand subscribers meanless. it's like the old amazon motto, "we make it up in volume" except that they lose money on every single sale. 😀

 

[jedidrw]

Anyone know if the DirectvDSL modem is a compatible DSL modem with Cyberonic?

I think the model I have is "10-X203"

If the modem is free with the 18 month contract I may just go with them, I don't think DSL is going to get faster downloads than 1.5Mbps (to Residential phone-lines) or cheaper than $40 a month. Seems like a good price for great service.

Here is a link to the Dslreports site for Cyberonic, it also has a field to put in your telephone number to see if you may qualify.

http://www.dslreports.com/reviews/1082

 

[vladgur]

now, who was the genius that moved this to General Hardware? I think this belongs in Off Topic at least....

 

[sharkeeper]

Good Riddance! :|

Cheers!

 

[vladgur]

The only problem with prepaying for 18 months that I see is what if they go out of business...then youre out of $720....

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: MrCoyote

How did they lose so much money when they had 160,000 subscribers? Sounds to me like maybe the CEO's were getting too big of a paycheck. When will people learn to manage income properly and don't overpay CEO's?

Compare that to the approx. 1M subscribers of Charter Cable that isn't even in every market and you have an idea of how they were struffling. Heck, if I remember the latest numbers correctly @Home even still has more subscribers than DirecTV DSL and they went out of business almost exactly a year ago.

That sucked too. I was on @Home. I even seriously considered switching to DirecTV DSL, but now I'm glad I didn't because it would have been serious deja vu.

 

[Dreadogg]

Now the only option I have is Adelphia cable - chapper, but not as good as SDSL.

The only thing your losing out on is that nice upload, you will be mostlikly gaining 3x the downstream.

 

[cutty]

I like cablevision, the speed is fast. Not only download speed, but also upload speed can reach as high as 120KB/s.
The bad thing is they don't give you static IP (though the IP doesn't change much), 2nd is they have blocked port 80, so if you want to host a website at default port number 80, people can't see it, however you can still use other numbers.

 

[Jhhnn]

Good headsup for anybody with their service. The Northpoint deal hammered lots of people, particularly businesses. Around here, the other providers, particularly Qwest, were slow to pickup on the opportunity- instead of hustling up to make a bundle, they just plodded on, put everybody on the six week waiting list. Oh, yeh, they just had to check the line, too, even though they'd already certified it as dsl capable. Twits.

We have dsl thru Viawest, I'd recommend them to anybody. Not cheap, just rock solid, and they offer email a/v filtering, too.

AT&T is our cable provider, they're on a big push to get us all to go with their cable service. I told they guy that if my phone was down as often as the cable, I'd consider it, otherwise go away.....

 

[S13SilviaK]

AT&T is our cable provider, they're on a big push to get us all to go with their cable service. I told they guy that if my phone was down as often as the cable, I'd consider it, otherwise go away.....

😀 That's funny!

Actually even though I love my att cable internet, I was so sick of their service a year ago I switched to directv.

I don't think the att tv end knows their head from their...foot, but the internet is in better shape, tech support is still pretty lousy but my internet hasn't been 1/100th as unreliable as my cable was, and I live in Los Angeles (not rural!)

 

[ShotgunSi]

Update. According to http://www.directvinternet.com/

As notified to you via email, it is our sincere regret to inform you that DIRECTV Broadband will discontinue operations. DIRECTV Broadband?s network (including your email services) will remain operational until at least January 16, 2003. We are working with alternative broadband partners to determine options for your broadband service, and as a result, our network may (but is not guaranteed to) remain operational for some period beyond such January 16 date as we work through those options. If you wish to terminate service before our network is discontinued, please contact us at www.directvdsl.com. No early termination or cancellation fees will apply. In any event, you will only be billed for services received through termination of your service (whether terminated by DIRECTV Broadband or at your request).

Looks like we can cancel it manually through the website? As some have mentioned above. We can't signup for a new service until DirectTV cancels our current DSL lines?
At this point for me, speakeasy is looking like a good deal. My only Ma Bell option is SBC/Pac Bell. I don't think I can get Verizon since my local phone is pacbell.

 

[HalfCrazy]

Originally posted by: DurocShark
I've been waiting for Adelphia to get off its duff and offer cable internet. I live off my cellphone, and hate the idea of having to have a land line just to get internet. Grrrr....

I have the same cable company as well. Still waiting for them to get cable internet available for my area.

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: MrCoyote
How did they lose so much money when they had 160,000 subscribers? Sounds to me like maybe the CEO's were getting too big of a paycheck. When will people learn to manage income properly and don't overpay CEO's?

Just look at the math. Let's say the CEO and the top execs are overpaid. So we'll cut the salaries for those people by $10 million, and assume that puts a serious dent in what they are making.

So now there's maybe only a $100 million loss with 160,000 subscribers. That means they lost about $52 every single month on every single subscriber.

It's not the CEO salary, it's that they aren't charging enough to make money. As others have pointed out, look at how many other broadband outfits have failed already. They can't make any money at the rates they charge.

 

[ojai00]

First I started with Northpoint. That went bankrupt so I switched over to Telocity. That went to DirecTV DSL and then they said I couldn't get DSL anymore because my building was not wired for it...😱 Funny how I was getting DSL before. Anyway, I spent a couple of months with dial-up before cable finally became available in my area. I haven't ever considered DSL after that. It seems they're all going bankrupt. Probably Speakeasy and Verizon are the only ones in the East/Northeast region right now that look pretty stable (or at least since the last time I checked...)