At 14:55 03/04/01, Roeland Meyer wrote:
The case I thought was under discussion is when an ISP dumps something on the order of 10^3 or more customers when they fail. I understand that NorthPoint abandoned ~100,000 customers when they sold their backbone to AT&T and AT&T didn't pick up the subscribers.
Northpoint was an access provider, not really an ISP. Folks using Northpoint had someone else as their ISP. I tried last year to use Northpoint as an ISP and they said, sorry, we aren't an ISP, here is our list of ISP partners, pick one. If customers had a 2nd access circuit from a different access provider to a different POP with the same ISP, they would be fine (as my friend has been in just this situation) even when Northpoint turned off the DSL access line. What AT&T bought wasn't so much a backbone as a whole lot of DSLAMs that are pre-located inside RBOC facilities and pre-interconnected with the RBOC facilities. AT&T already had at least 2 backbones (one obtained from TCG/CERFnet and one from WorldNet), hence didn't need another. Quod Est Demonstratum. Ran