OT: Internet Provider

[Karl F. Larsen]

Leif Gregory wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:41:21 -0700
> "Karl F. Larsen" <klarsen1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>>     I just returned from the building that holds Zianet now in Las 
>> Cruces, NM. I entered the inner works and learned that Zianet and One 
>> Connect and SkiWi are now merged into one company called Zianet. They
>> go to court next Tuesday trying to win a reduction in the cost of
>> bytes for dollars.
>>     
>
> Ok, might as well chime in so you've got the whole story. My wife and I
> have been dealing with Jack Leech, president of SkyWi / OneConnect
> directly since this started. My wife's office was a customer of
> SkyWi VoIP services and was down for two weeks.
>
> At any rate, OneConnect absorbed ZiaNet, then later merged with SkyWi
> and are operating under the SkyWi banner. However, they're all still
> offering services under their previous names. When OneConnect merged
> with SkyWi, they were unaware that SkyWi was litigating against Qwest.
> SkyWi had an injunction in place to prevent Qwest from disconnecting
> services while fees were being disputed. Prior to Qwest terminating
> service, disputed fees were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
> that Qwest was owed. The dispute was over SkyWi saying Qwest was
> charging too much, anti-trust violations, racketeering etc. They stated
> Qwest was in violation of RICO statutes and the Clayton Act.
>
> On Dec 30th, the day after the injunction expired, Qwest terminated
> service. A PRC hearing was scheduled immediately and Qwest was ordered
> to restore service. Qwest froze more than 1.5M of pending sales and made
> statements to the public that SkyWi was going out of business.
>
> It wasn't until the 6th of Jan that VoIP service was restored to my
> wife's office (technically her whole floor).
>
> So, SkyWi owed Qwest (based on what I would assume to have been a
> negotiated fee agreement) hundreds of thousands. SkyWi disputed the
> fees and received an injuction to prevent termination of service.
> SkyWi and Qwest both knew the injuction was set to expire. NEITHER of
> them notified customers who would be impacted.
>
> Qwest did what it set out to do, which was seriously undermine trust
> in SkyWi and OneConnect. Customers are leaving in droves. We blame
> both of them. Heck, nearly the entire city of Taos was affected to
> include police, hospitals, etc.
>
> Most of the people on my wife's floor had cellular service with Qwest.
> Not anymore. I've helped most of them dump Qwest and go with other
> cellular providers and the building manager is moving to another ISP
> and VoIP provider. The core problem still remains though. These
> smaller ISPs are riding on Qwest infrastructure.
>
> At any rate, stay tuned. As an attorney, my wife is working with some
> other attorneys to proceed with a class action lawsuit. 
>
>   
    Sounds just like Las Cruces. The newspaper said Qwest promised to 
not turn off DSL for SkiWi customers until 10 days after the next court 
appearance. It did not mention VoIP service.

    In my opinion SkyFi should spend their money on getting the NM 
Public Regulation Commission up to speed on what Qwest has, and is doing 
to the small retail Internet providers in NM.

    Please send me what I need to do to be a party to the Class Action 
Lawsuit. I think this can hurt Qwest bad and might even topple the 
current poor upper management.

Karl


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
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