ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, Sirius, FirstWorld, Verado
ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, Sirius, FirstWorld, Verado
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In autumn 1998, I signed up for PPP dialup connectivity with a highly rated (at that time) local ISP, Sirius Connections. They performed decently when I first joined up, and then quickly degraded after acquisition by FirstWorld Communications. After much technical support agony (hours on the phone talking to people who couldn't fix problems/improve network performance) and lousy service (dead news server, busy signals from the dialup server's modems) and performance (decreased availability and throughput, slower DNS lookup speeds) , I wrote snail mail letters to three (3) FirstWorld executives plus the former CEO of Sirius Connections. None of the scumbags answered my letters; they were too %$#@&*! lazy to even get their executive assistants to fire off some lame Dear John letter.
Their utter disdain allows me to make the following conclusions:
I saw a note on the Sirius Connections web site that the webmail server was down until it was rebuilt:
Last updated: Wed, 22 Dec 99 at 7:24 am Webmail will be down while the server is being rebuilt. We apologize for the inconvenience and at this time there is no ETA. You can use other web email programs such as http://www.mail2web.com or http://www.mailstart.com.
That's a full month of lameness.
The Sirius Webmail host (webmail.sirius.com) no longer exists.
Summary: If you want incompetent clowns with zero integrity running your ISP, then FirstWorld (formerly Sirius Connections) is your place. At least a part of their management team suffers from ED (Executive Dysfunction) and not even a fine product from Pfizer could cure it.
According to FC, a complaint (a.k.a. shareholder class-action lawsuit) has been filed against FirstWorld that the company and some of its officers and directors made false and misleading statements in an SEC registration statement and their IPO prospectus. The company's stock (NASDAQ: FWIS) has dropped from the March 2000 first day debut of 38 3/4 to 3 29/32, not much more than it's all-time low of 3 1/2.
FirstWorld continues to be bombarded by class-action lawsuits from irate investors. All four covering brokers have downgraded the stock in the past month. The stock hit an all-time low at 2 7/16 on July 31st. FirstWorld's Q2 2000 earnings announcement is scheduled for Tuesday, August 8th. We might see some fireworks!
The continuously running Sirius/FirstWorld fiasco made it a seeming no-brainer to force a November 1999 switch to Excite@Home. Boy, was I going to be wrong. More about that later.
FirstWorld (NASDAQ: FWIS) closes at $0 21/32, the first of four times in the upcoming days it is to do so. The price is a 52-week low.
Is it strategy? Cowardice? ValueJet? Or is it a sinister plot to cheat people from their FC points? FirstWorld Communications announces today that it is changing its name to Verado Holdings and its stock symbol to VRDO (maybe to evade shareholder lawsuits). Or maybe the new management team wants to distance themselves from previous bozos who almost ran the company into the ground?
I can't believe I didn't short this stock. I could have made tens of thousands.
Verado Holdings (NASDAQ: VRDO) closes at $0.35 a share, a brand-new 52-week low.
Verado drops another 37% in less than two months, closing at $0.22 per share, an even swankier 52-week low. Hey, it looks kinda like Webvan's stock price range (NASDAQ: WBVN)!
As you all probably know by now, Webvan said "no mas" and its assets are being auctioned off as I type this. In the world of the dot.com deadpool, Webvan has reached cult status. For example, logo-emblazoned trinkets and Webvan stock certificates are fetching good bids on eBay.
EarthLink (NASDAQ: ELNK) has purchased FirstWorld Communication's dialup subscriber list, thus ending FirstWorld as an ISP. One of my former colleagues sends me e-mail saying her longtime Sirius/FirstWorld account is dead.
This is not how you want to hit the wire services:
DENVER, Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Verado Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRDO - news), a provider of outsourced managed hosting, professional services and data center solutions, today announced that it has received a Nasdaq Staff Determination that it has not maintained compliance with the market value of public float requirement for continued listing set forth in Marketplace Rule 4450(b)(3) and that its common stock is, therefore, subject to delisting from the Nasdaq National Market.
Run for the hills!!!
Verado Holdings (NASDAQ: VRDO) closes for the eighth time at $0.06 a share, a 52-week low. Ahahahahaha!!! I'd have to sell 333 shares of VRDO just to cover the brokerage trading fee. Good thing I don't have any shares of these scumbags.
I get occasional bulletins about some continuing legal action against Verado and First World. I guess only the lawyers get rich after the dot-bomb implosion. Lawyers suck.
I just noticed that the sirius.com domain name has been sold to Sirius XM satellite service where it's getting a lot more use than it ever did as an ISP's home page.
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| Last modified on
Tue Dec 2 01:29:42 GMT 2003
by tarahertz@yahoo.com |
Copyright © 1999-2003 Tara Hertz. All rights reserved. |
ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, Sirius, FirstWorld, Verado