hawaiiantel, dsl?

[dumbstruck]

What is the affordable, lowend broadband choice? It looks like
Hawaiiantel dsl has raised it's annual rate from $30 to $34. This
while Verizon dsl was moving from $30 down to $20 just after selling
out to Hawaiiantel IIRC.

I don't know these prices for a fact, but guess from their creative
billing. I find no pricing info on their web site, and they are famous
for unreachability on phone. They seemed to accidentally billed zero in
previous month. Now they double charge, but halve the annual rate
discount from $8 to $4. I hope it doesn't go like before where you lose
annual rates without warning and get bumped to the even worse $38.

[Nai`a]

Post by dumbstruck
What is the affordable, lowend broadband choice?

If it works in your area[tm], ClearWire is pretty good. If in doubt,
give the LavaNet office a call (545-5282) , and we can tell you. I
believe it's about $20/mo intro rate, $28/mo thereafter. Service speed
at that price is 768x256.

Post by dumbstruck
It looks like Hawaiiantel dsl has raised it's annual rate from $30 to
$34.

" Looks Like.[tm]

Post by dumbstruck
This while Verizon dsl was moving from $30 down to $20 just after
selling out to Hawaiiantel IIRC.

That involved a Yahoo.com email address, IIRC.
Cute idea.

Aloha mai Nai`a!

[dumbstruck]

It's so strange that almost no inet providers post their "thereafter"
price on any ad or website - seems false advertising that they only
post the intro price, forcing the inconvenience reaching a live
representative to see the real deal. With verizon I tracked down a free
for 6 months deal, but the decision was based on their price
thereafter.

Anyway, I thought I would suggest that hawaiiantel users might check
for email using the web page rather than just trying downloads to their
machine. Email to my main acct name seems to get stuck in web land and
won't download. Except for an alias I set up for my truely urgent
email, that does download! This after their failed attempt to upgrade
email, trouble handling help calls, and
http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/20/business/story01.html

[Angela Kahealani]

Post by dumbstruck
http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/20/business/story01.html
"Any time something like that happens, it's an
inconvenience," he said. "But it's not life-threatening."

...unless, of course, you're dependent upon VoIP to dial 911.

While GTE/Verizon/HawaiianTelCom provide my DSL circuit
(and have reliably done so), my ISP is Lava.NET, and they're
much more honest, reliable, and dependable. I experienced
no glitches or interruptions of any kind during or since the earthquake,
in terms of internet service. Living on Kaua'i however, our
power company is much less reliable, so I depend upon UPSs
to keep my internet service stable.

[Nai`a]

Living on Kaua'i however, our power company is much less reliable,
so I depend upon UPSs to keep my internet service stable.

Bet you were up faster than HECO, though.

Also, ... If personal connectivity really, really mattered to me,
I'd buy a generator.
Helps to have somewhere that I can run it, too, of course.
My apartment doesn't have a lanai, so I'm kinda stuck that way.

The Good News is, HiTelCo managed to keep the bits flowing with DSL.
And we, of course, kept them flowing to everyone else who was up.
Not an experience that I'd like to relive any time soon, but...
Many interesting lessons were learned.

Including the utility of a really good flashlight when climbing up
11 flights of stairs in pitch darkness.

And no, after this, having cable as my sole lifeline is a no-brainer.
Even celphones went off the air, and dialup got AllCircuitsBusy.
But DSL ... rocked my world.

Aloha mai Nai`a!

[Hertz_Donut]

Post by dumbstruck
It's so strange that almost no inet providers post their "thereafter"
price on any ad or website - seems false advertising that they only
post the intro price, forcing the inconvenience reaching a live
representative to see the real deal. With verizon I tracked down a free
for 6 months deal, but the decision was based on their price
thereafter.
Anyway, I thought I would suggest that hawaiiantel users might check
for email using the web page rather than just trying downloads to their
machine. Email to my main acct name seems to get stuck in web land and
won't download. Except for an alias I set up for my truely urgent
email, that does download! This after their failed attempt to upgrade
email, trouble handling help calls, and
http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/20/business/story01.html

I have used Verizon/Hawaiiantel for years, and have never had *ANY* issues.
I use Outlook for mail, and I never have any messages "get stuck in web
land" (???).

I have 5 computers in my home, and have none of the issues you describe,
which suggests the issues are local to you and your computer, and are not a
problem on the HawTel end.

Bobby

[dumbstruck]

Post by Hertz_Donut
I have used Verizon/Hawaiiantel for years, and have never had *ANY* issues.
I use Outlook for mail, and I never have any messages "get stuck in web
land" (???).
I have 5 computers in my home, and have none of the issues you describe,
which suggests the issues are local to you and your computer, and are not a
problem on the HawTel end.

Their email problems have been covered in the local media, ever since
http://starbulletin.com/2006/04/04/business/story02.html up to
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Oct/20/br/br7329186405.html
. I can't find articles in between, but I seem to recall at least one.

Look on their own site http://www.hawaiiantel.net/wps/portal for the
shrill announcement in yellow about failed web email upgrade; that is
the "software upgrade" that triggered all the recent articles about
their systemwide downtime, and by my experience it continued to impact
my normal email by getting stuck for almost a week.

On reflection, my problems may relate to setting up a "subaccount",
which I think everyone should consider if converting from Verizon where
they had to choose a dorky, unique username limited by the huge legacy
of names. Now Hawaiiantel seems to have it pretty wide open for short,
rememberable names for email.

But in my experience your username and subnames only BOTH work about a
third of the time. Another third of a time only your subaccount name
email is downloadable, although you can find it stuck there via
webmail. And another third of the time only your main username email is
downloadable except via webmail. Every month or two someone seems to
flip a switch and email is freed up to download.

I confirmed my email software has always been set up exactly like HT's
detailed help screens they eventually put up for that particular
software. And the email cascaded thru recently with no change at my
end. Might be that they are slower to deal with compatibility with my
nonMS software...

I hope the new webmail is faster than the old. Especially for a
subaccount, you have to login seperately for about a 5min hold that
seems to fail the first attempt or 2. Maybe some problem due to
blocking popups; their help screens warn you can't get the next webmail
to work at all if you block!