Spam dispute leaves Pennridge, residents without Internet : The...

I've done consulting for saidcom and I am very aware of what has happened. The real story here that has not been told follows:

Level 3 has been forwarding complaints to saidcom regarding any issues related to the web hosting department. saidcom resolved all such issues within 24 hours with the client that was involved within 24hrs as required by the terms of service stated by both saidcom and level3. A few days prior to feb 23rd, level 3 seemed satisfied with saidcom's performance with such issues and how they were being handled. Then on feb 23rd around 4pm ,level 3 contacted saidcom and notified them the internet service was going to be terminated in 2hrs and there was no disputing the termination. EVEN AFTER SAIDCOM OFFERED TO COMPLETEY TERMINATE THEIR WEBHOSTING DEPARTMENT TO SATISFY LEVEL 3'S DRACONIAN REQUESTS (A HUGE SACRIFICE TO SAVE INTERNET SERVICE TO THE PENNRIDGE SCHOOL DISTRICT INTERNET SERVICE WHICH WAS NOT THE TARGET OF ANY COMPLAINTS EVER!) LEVEL 3 CONTINUED WITH THE TERMINATION. Knowing full well they would cause a severe disruption to the workings of a large school district's ability to use internet resources, level 3 did not care.

Such an unethical position of intractability is the real story here. Level 3 needs to answer why they caused this distress to children and teachers when saidcom offered a complete solution to their concerns. The Morning Call MUST follow up on this story. Its unfortunate that a corporation can get so large as level 3 has and , as a result, loose sight of standard ethical business practices. If you research level 3, you'll will discover that this is not the 1st, 2nd , or even 3rd time they have done such a thing. One has to wonder if this is their standard operating procedure after they buy out smaller Internet service providers and do not wish to honor the contracts they inherit.

I am comenting on this using a old dial-up since Saidcom was my ISP.
While Mark's comments maybe true, the way Saidcom has addressed this has been extremely poor.

Shortly after the outage all one got when they called since their service was down was the usual message to leave a message and they would return your call, guess what, no call back. Even today if you call the off you get a poorly worded, vague message about when service MIGHT be restored and no idea what they are going to do for all of us effected by this outage.

We all have contracts (many of which are pre-paid) with Saidcom to provide service, they have failed to provide the service we contracted for. How about a backup plan, or backup provider?

When we spoke to Mr. Siwert did he appologize for the outage, did he ask to try and bear with them and they will offer some an extra month or two to make up for the loss, nope. He just walked away from conversation.

While problems can occur, it is the way that they have handled this that is of real concern.

Saidcom can not blame Level3 for them not having an emergency plan in place. Most ISPs have more than 1 data provider, just for situation like this. It is very sad for the Pennridge School District, but Saidcom has done this to themselves. You just can't lease out the backbone of your company to a single provider and hope that nothing like this will ever happen.

"Siwert said he doesn't know if his company's standoff with Level 3 will end up in court. He declined to say how much the disruption is costing SaidCom, but said the company has lost a lot."

Not a chance. Siwert knows that Saidcom is in fault here, not Level3. Level3 is doing what they have to do to protect their service, Saidcom should have been doing the same all along. Regardless of the reasons Level3 has for shutting their data line off, Saidcom should have more control over their business. Passing the blame off to their provider through the local media is very shameful.