Earthlink, AKA SpamLink, is the AOL of ISP's

Why Earthlink Sucks

Earthlinks Virtual Infrastructue

• Unlike most ISPs, Earthlink does not spend money on infrastructrue. Memory, yes, but not Bandwidth. Most ISPs spend a lot of money buying dedicated lines between POPs and remote sites. Earthlink leases is from other providers. This has some unpleasant side effects:
• Slow downlada times - it's sending it through clogged wires all the way from LA
• When something goes wrong with your dial up, they can't help. They lease these from other organizations.
• when you contact these orgainzations, they tell you to go through EarthLink
• people can use fake addresses to send mail, post to the Usenet. It takes a week for Earthlink to track them down.
• Then they use another one for a week
• I have been told (1/97) that they fixed this problem.
• UUnet, one of their providers was UDP'd for the massive amount of spam

EarthLink's Virtual Staffing

• Despite their phenominal growth, their staff hasn't kept up.
• Calling them will result in a one hour wait on hold
• If you get anyone, they won't know how to help you
• Accounting is terminally clueless - they will bill you and bill you, even after you keep cancelling the charges.
• They never answer Email
• They don't return phone calls
• Their internet liason, Harris Schwartz, is an asshole.
• They bill you in a per month throughput, at $58 a gigabyte - 3-4 times what other ISPs charge

EarthLinks "Proactive" Consumer support

• If Earthlink determines you are having a problem with their service, they will call you up.
• This is based on a Scientology program - you know, the one that means people will keep calling and mailing you stuff even after yoyu have moved, died, entered the Federal Witness Protection Program, etc.
• Unfortunately, they can't call the people waiting on hold - their line is busy ;)
• And they have no proactive support - like, say, hiring people - to answer tech support calls.,
• This is the company that will bill you for months after you cancel, and after you keep getting your credit card company to cancel the charges. Do you want them calling you to ask WHY you havn't used their system?
• Most ISPs keep user logs to see if the system is working. EarthLink uses them to monitor what you are doing.

Earthlink's screwy finaces

• Earthlink submits a report saying that "they are going to run out of cash before the end of the year
• They they say its a mistake, and submits a "correction" saying thay they actually have enough money
• And then their Chief Finatial Officer resigns (one of the few upper management who isn't a scientologist).
• Earthlink has never made money, they just lose LESS money every year
• They are PAYING ISP's to give them customers.

Some anti-Earthlink homepages

• The Earthlink Haters Homepage
• Earthlink Sucks
• Earthlink and Scientology: The Links