Alas the incompetence of Garry & Kerner and the MIS morons, combined with their out-sourcing (no one on a phone had the power to fix a problem) made the product impossible to get.

I think the sound coming from Peachtree street is either the death moans of competition or the labor pains of the rebirth of the AT&T monopoly. Or both.

Amen to that. The ‘free market’ for internet ceased to exist some time in the early part of the decade; what we have right now is a regulated duopoly, nothing more.

Problem is, Earthlink was too stupid to actually buy its own infrastructure. They resold from other CLECs. That created a massive finger-pointing fest between the ISP who talks to the customer, the CLEC who resells the line, and the Telco which actually owns the line.

We have such short term memories. And I have to admit mines a little fuzzy on this issue as well. But, as I remember it, didn’t BellSouth avoid monopoly charges by making a deal with Earthlink?
This is what I remember: Mindspring was kicking ass and taking names when it came to internet access and was complaining that they needed access to the high speed dsl in order to continue to grow. BellSouth saw them as a threat and denied access. Mindspring pursued monopoly charges. BellSouth made deal with Earthlink (somewhere between 2-10% of the market). BellSouth declares “see, we’re not a monopoly”, or something like that. Mindspring is thereby, having no choice, forced to merge with Earthlink. Then, BellSouth buys Cingular (to control the wireless), AT&T buys BellSouth and becomes both “AT&T wireless” and “the new AT&T .”
I think the sound coming from Peachtree street is either the death moans of competition or the labor pains of the rebirth of the AT&T monopoly. Or both.