Jim Wagner

Subscribers to AltaVista’s free Internet service will need to search for a new provider after an email by the company Tuesday announced the program’s dissolution. The search engine is terminating its free service Dec. 10 because its dial up connectivity provider, 1stUp.com, is going out of business, the email reads. Ken Neibaur, Alta Vista vice […]

Although customers are still having difficulties reaching anybody in support, Flashcom officials asserted Tuesday they are working around the clock to resolve the growing number of complaints flooding its phone banks. The digital subscriber line provider was the focus of considerable customer ire Monday when its two main support lines hung up on customers looking […]

Digital subscriber line provider Flashcom has decided not to answer the phone Monday in response to growing customer outcry over poor service. Calls this morning to technical support, billing and main business line asked customers to wait on the line if they have a question pertaining to billing. Waiting on the line, however, prompted a […]

In a turn of events that reads like a passage from Oedipus Rex, Bluelight.com bought out its Internet provider Spinway, Inc., Monday for an undisclosed amount. But whether Bluelight follows the path of the doomed son, who ends the life of his parent, remains to be seen as free ISPs around the country face experience […]

StarNet’s Internet service provider customers around the U.S. got a disturbing email in their inbox this week, giving them until Dec. 31 to find another high-speed provider. StarNet, a provider of dial up, ISDN and digital subscriber line access to ISPs, claims substandard customer support and service from its supplier, Covad Communications Group, as one […]

Despite NorthPoint Communications insistence it is not done with them yet, Verizon Communications told a group of investors Thursday morning it is moving forward with a revised national DSL expansion plan funded by the money it saves from the failed merger. Verizon announced late Wednesday afternoon its intention to walk out on an $800 million […]

New Edge Networks is picking up the frame relay business dropped by Time Warner Telecom after its purchase of GST Telecommunications, officials announced Wednesday. TWT bought the bankrupt competitive local exchange carrier Aug. 25 for $690 million in cash and debt assumption, but decided not to support or sell frame relay services to GST customers. […]

Verizon Communications Inc. on Wednesday terminated its merger agreement with NorthPoint Communications, citing the deterioration in NorthPoint’s business, operations and financial condition since Aug. 7 when the two companies agreed to merge their digital subscriber line (DSL) businesses. One week after unveiling disappointing third quarter financial results, NorthPoint Communications is reviewing its options after absorbing […]

Content meets access as the Microsoft Network signs a deal Tuesday with New Edge Networks to provide its Internet services on a broadband platform. The deal gives America’s fifth-largest ISP another broadband venue in an industry looking to provide platform-agnostic high-speed services, called by many the three broadband pipes of data transmission: digital subscriber line, […]

Level 3 Communications, Inc., announced dark fiber agreements with two telecommunications companies Tuesday totaling $700 million, in hopes to regain investor confidence and jump start its stalled stock value. The contracts with McLeodUSA, Inc., and XO Communications, Inc., gives Level 3 more than $2 billion in signed contracts this year, providing a steady income for […]

AT&T WorldNet Service officials hope its deal Monday with Inktomi Corp. will avoid a repeat of last year’s industry-wide holiday e-commerce letdown and net the Internet service provider a large percentage of this season’s expected $11 billion online spending frenzy. Using Inktomi’s Commerce Engine, WorldNet customers will be able to surf the company’s e-commerce site, […]

Digital subscriber line customers in the Northeast have been plagued with network problems that have left many without services for nearly a month. At one point, DSL business and residential customers in almost 75 percent of Massachusetts and cities throughout the Northeast couldn’t establish a connection, and those that could, reported sluggish download speeds. That, […]