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Excite@Home Pissed Off About PacBell Ads

Overhype

from the get-over-it dept

Tue, May 2nd 2000 2:02am — Mike Masnick
Excite@Home is apparently threatening to sue PacBell for a series of ads that tries to depict the slowing down of high speed access caused by shared cable modem lines. I've seen the commercials, and they're pretty damn funny. Excite@Home is overreacting. I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks that neighborhoods are turned into crime zones due to "web hogs" slowing down cable access. If anything, Excite@Home can take an easy stab at PacBell's notorious service problems and then they'll all be even.
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5 Comments

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  • identicon
    Dan Miller, 2 May 2000 @ 10:58am

    No Subject Given

    What a bunch of babies. It's a known fact that cable speeds degrade with additional usage. Pac*Bell isn't saying anything new. Excite@Home should focus on their business, not an ad which is fairly true and on the mark. Plus, the ads are pretty funny...

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mr.White, 2 May 2000 @ 1:07pm

    DSL is good....cable? ehhh.

    I have ONLY DSL, not by choice. I live downtown, cable is not provided. As long as an AD is true, is there a problem? I mean, if I say competiter BrandX [Batman(c)] is bad, then....that is opinion, but if I say it it built by 7 year olds in Cuba....and that is not true, THAT is sueable. If I say performance degrades over time [true] and with more customers [true] then, what is the problem? www.collectivethoughts.org

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    ROcK_LoBSTeR, 2 May 2000 @ 2:11pm

    @home and bandwidth degradation

    I am currently shopping around for some bigger pipe and asked a @home sales rep if speeds will degrade as more people share the same node. He said that "there was a slight possibility but @Home is commited to making sure that does not happen". Hmmm. Well, anyway.... Guess I'm lucky because both cable & DSL are becoming readily available where I live at. (philly & NJ)Now I just have to weigh the options. Bye the way, I like this messageboard. Anyone no where I can get a GOOD, free CGI script for a message board that isn't to complicated to install? I tried to install the Ultimate Bulletin Board, that was a disaster, since i don't know CGI to well. Thanks

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Other Ryan, 2 May 2000 @ 2:20pm

      Re: bulletin board cgi

      Where I have my homepage (crosswinds.net) I'm pretty sure they have it set up so you basically say "add a chat board" and there it is. You might want to search for different hosting services. Otherwise, I think even if you find a lightweight script you're going to have to learn cgi to get it to work.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Mike (profile), 2 May 2000 @ 2:49pm

        Re: bulletin board cgi

        Yeah, if you're hosting a domain, many hosts provide pre-installed message boards. In fact, Techdirt's host (Actionweb.com) provides one as well (which we don't use since we set up our own code). And, actually, if you are looking for a host, I have to recommend Actionweb highly. I've used about 10 different hosting companies for other projects over the past 2 years, and almost every one of them has caused more problems than their worth, with the one shining exception being Actionweb, which I've used the longest and had the fewest (um... actually no real problems) problems with.

        Another option is to use remotely hosted CGI scripts. I haven't tried any, but you can get a good list at: http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Remotely_Hosted/Bulletin_Board_Message_Systems/.

        [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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