Uploaded:Monday, Dec.3, 2001, 1:50 p.m.
At Home customers have
no home AT&T customers who had Internet service
with Excite@Home disconnected for now AT&T reports that its broadband
Internet customers in the Bay Area including Palo Alto could be without service
for up to 10 days while it works to switch them to a different network after failing
to reach and agreement with Redwood City-based ExciteAtHome. According to
a statement issued Saturday, about 86,000 AT&T customers, mostly in Oregon and
Washington, had already been switched over to a new network by that morning. The
rest of the company's 860,000 customers, including those in the Bay Area, Pittsburgh,
Chicago and Dallas, were still waiting for service to resume. Some reports indicated
that Bay Area customers might have Internet service restored by as soon as Tuesday.
ExciteAtHome switched off its service after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson
ruled Friday that parent company At Home Corp. could end its agreements to provide
high-speed Internet access because the contracts had become financially burdensome
to the company. The cancellation resulted in an interruption for 3.7 million ExciteAtHome
subscribers, including the AT&T customers, in the United States and Canada.
AT&T said it would automatically credit the accounts of all customers who have
been affected by the interruption by giving them two free days for every one day
of interrupted service. Some customers will receive free dial-up modem service
until they are reconnected with the high-speed network, the company said.
Broadband cable television and telephone services provided by AT&T are not affected,
the company said, but all domain names, such as e-mail addresses, previously using
the suffix @home.com will now be switched over to @attbi.com. -- Bay City
News Service | 
