ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, BlueLight.com, Spinway.com
ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, BlueLight.com, Spinway.com
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I started using Kmart-branded BlueLight.com along with NetZero as my 1stUp connection became flakier. This requires you to have a Yahoo! Mail account. Yahoo! privacy policies have sucked ever since they forced you to give a credit card to verify that you're an adult.
The BlueLight.com client hogs up the bottom of the screen. When the service functions, it does work better than NetZero's brain-dead Java trash. I use BlueLight.com when NetZero's network is hosed (it happens a lot).
I just learned that Spinway is out of business and that BlueLight.com acquired the parts of the free service so BlueLight.com free dialup still works.
BlueLight.com now warns users that usage is metered and you have to pay money if you pass a certain usage level: 12 hours per month. For $9.95 you can get 100 hours. That's not a very good deal. AT&T WorldNet offers a plan called i495 that offers 100 hours for $4.95 per month. NetZero Platinum is unlimited hours for $9.95 per month. (Free NetZero is 40 hours per month).
Mark Goldstein, BlueLight.com's CEO is outta here. Hey, wait a minute. Mark Goldston. Mark Goldstein. Could this be the same person? Hmmm... One runs a sucky free ISP, the other... runs a sucky free ISP!
With little doubt, BlueLight.com is a far worse free ISP compared to NetZero (although NetZero has nothing to be proud about). BlueLight.com's network performance is horrible: local routing problems, ISP egress issues, and DNS lookup failures galore. How bad is bad? Well, when your users can't surf to Yahoo! or your own home page, essentially, you've totally screwed them.
I've diddled with the local access numbers. Different blocks of numbers seem to be going to different dial-up servers, sometimes this allows you to get online, but taste of victory is brief: you're going to lose the suckiness war with BlueLight.com.
Today, Kmart announced that it is buying out the remaining shares of BlueLight.com to add to its current 60 percent interest, reeling in the wayward e-tailer back into the corporate fold. Thank you for the 178 FC points!
Kmart (NYSE: KM) has killed off its free dialup service, moving to a pay-to-surf model ($8.95 for unlimited nationwide access).
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 18:00:56 -0700 (PDT) From: "BlueLight.com Internet Service" <root@mail1.bluelight.com> Subject: Important Service Announcement To: ***Important Changes to BlueLight.com Internet Service*** Discontinuation of FREE 12-Hour Basic Service Effective August 29, 2001, our free 12-hour BlueLight Basic Internet service will be discontinued. Click here for the Service Announcement. Sign up now for BlueLight Unlimited, our new and improved plan, which gives you unlimited time online for the low price of $8.95 a month! To introduce our great new plan, we're offering the first three months for just $6.95 a month to subscribers who join before September 1, 2001. Click here to get BlueLight Unlimited now!
Pud reports that 90% of BlueLight.com employees were escorted out of their fancy Fisherman's Wharf digs. 193 more FC points for yours truly!
Looking into my cache directory, it appears that BlueLight.com is trying to download the installer application for their new pay-to-surf service (as opposed to one of their lousy two megabyte MPEG ads).
Also, I note that the network connection is dropped after forty minutes. It doesn't matter if you click on the banner ads or not. Forty minutes is all you get. :(
Funny, I think I've used up more than 10-12 hours; the "meter" has been stuck at 35 minutes the last 3-4 times I've dialed in. I don't even know if the extra time is a good thing; the DNS lookups are now horrendously slow. (In addition, large parts of the Internet are inaccessible, pointing to DNS or possible router issues.) I'd like to see what happens if I try dialing in after "D-Day".
My BlueLight.com account is finally dead. R.I.P. I just uninstalled the BlueLight.com software and deleted the Spinway.com directory from my hard drive.
Kmart chief technology officer Richard Blunck has been appointed the new CEO of BlueLight.com according to news reports. He's been running the show since former CEO Mark Goldstein relinquished his throne in late May.
The Kmart Corporation has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today. Since January 8, when the stock (NYSE: KM) closed the last time above $5 per share ($5.05 to be exact), the market has been slaughtering the poor share price. After the dust has settled, the closing share price is $0.69, down over 60% from the previous day's close.
United Online (NASDAQ: UNTD), the merger between two sucky ISPs NetZero and Juno intends to pick up this festering sore ISP from the scrap heap upcoming auction from K-Mart.
I will post updates on the BlueLight service in the United Online section.
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| Last modified on
Wed Jan 1 18:14:26 GMT 2003
by tarahertz@yahoo.com |
Copyright © 1999-2003 Tara Hertz. All rights reserved. |
ISPs who suck, ISP Hall of Shame, BlueLight.com, Spinway.com