I am interested in getting any comments / opinions of current XO customers (for Dedicated lines), they have offered us some very attractive pricing for a DS3

Of course they say their network is the best, blah blah .. :D .. but I am more interested in hearing from people that use them and can give us the real scoop :)

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?h=1&s=xoxo.ob&d=v1

6 cents a share and going down. I suggest you find a provider who won't be out of business in a few weeks.

I have been with XO for quite a while, but place no long-term dependence on them.

They are in the midst of negotiating a new restructuring agreement with their lenders. The current plan is that they will attempt to reorganize under bankruptcy. However, nothing is certain. They need between $500 and $600 Million to carry them forward. They have been in default since December 31. In their most recent year they lost over $2 Billion on Revenues of less than $1.3 Billion.

If they do continue, who can even guess which business segments they will continue and which they will shut down. Accordingly, I would not make a major new commitment with them at this time.

Another company we where lookign into was Time Warner Telecom .. also a shaky one it seems

Originally posted by CRego3D
Another company we where lookign into was Time Warner Telecom .. also a shaky one it seems

Especially with yesterday's financial report...

How much they charge per Mbps?

They offered me about $4000 for a full DS3 not to long ago so they must be in trouble as this is an excellent price for this amount of bandwidth.

You will be hard pressed to find a affordable company not having financial problems (unfortunate). If your looking for the cheapest price i would suggest you look at XO, for a semi reliable, financially stable solution look at time warner. XO is having large financial problems, time warner is also having problems too, but their a little more conservative in their cash flow spending. In some markets Time Warners backbone stinks, in others its great. Time Warners pricing is fairly aggresive but dont plan on getting a fast build in or any build in at all, your best bet is to use a existing lit carrier in your building to get to them, as they dont build into buildings very fast or usually at all unless your committing to a large amount.

You might look at cable and wireless, while not multihomed their about the best company in regards to financials and backbone. And if you dont mind spending a bit, Internap has a fantastic product, but you pay for it. Were looking at cable and wireless as well as internap to add to our transit service. If you do go with internap that adds 8-9 carriers to your backbone automatically.

Hope that helps, have a great day.

I agree, if you are shopping price, then don't expect much in customer service, support or uptime. I work for a large ISP (Sprint) and used to loose deals to Windstar all the time. Well they went belly up and gave their clients a month to move and they all came back. If it is too good to be true, it more than likely is. I hope everything works out, but I'd have a plan b ready just in case you get the pink slip saying you are getting cut off.

Being in a Colo makes it easier to switch providers. Just wondering who is second cheapest if Cogent dies. =)

I believe a company called aleron or something like that provides similar pricing. But they seem to have less peering and problems with certain areas of their backbone.

Thanks for the insight Charles

We have a great deal on the table from TW, but XO's networkk looked to be better (not much good if they go down)

time to do some more math :)

Originally posted by emoore
They offered me about $4000 for a full DS3 not to long ago so they must be in trouble as this is an excellent price for this amount of bandwidth.

damm, who gave you that price ? :D .. give me the rep number !!

From my quotes the past 2 months timewarner was about 30% more expensive than xo, this was for colo in their facilities. The impression I got from xo is that they want business and are willing to cut prices to get you as a client. Timewarner on the other hand thinks they are the one and dont need to. Could just be the reps I have too. As for financials....To me everyone is in the gutter and its anyones guess who will be around in 12 months.

It is true the whole ISP industry is in the crapper, but some will make it and a lot will not. I don't see XO making it. WorldCom today announced record low sales. AT&T, Sprint, Quest and the bells are the only ones I see making it.

From my quotes the past 2 months timewarner was about 30% more expensive than xo, this was for colo in their facilities. The impression I got from xo is that they want business and are willing to cut prices to get you as a client. Timewarner on the other hand thinks they are the one and dont need to. Could just be the reps I have too. As for financials....To me everyone is in the gutter and its anyones guess who will be around in 12 months.

I was trying to get some pricing on DS3s, T1s and such, Time Warner was way high though. They were quoting about 2K just on install on some of the T1s. XO "supposedly" has some really good investors who are trying to come to the table, but in the end, you never really know. I just wish someone other than Bell, Qwest & AT&T could survive. The more of the XOs and such that go away, the less competitive the market gets, and we are the ones who end up paying for it.

Originally posted by Kru
I just wish someone other than Bell, Qwest & AT&T could survive.

Don't forget about Worldcom. They are really solid, and are starting to come to their senses about pricing - I was surprised at the pricing I saw the other day from them.

CRego3D: You might also want to check Verio. I've seen some really impressive pricing from them lately, too.

Worldcoms stock was downgraded to penny stock, wonder if this is indicative of financial problems they are having.

Read somewhere that verio is doing ok financially but don't have any first hand exp.

We use qwest in KS and i have to say their service sucks anymore.

I dunno, this sounded pretty positive to me:

http://www.datacenterwire.com/wmview.php?ArtID=761

Guess thats why im not a cfo, got bored after the first paragraph :)

If you are depending upon XO to deliver what they sell, think again. We have been sitting on a signed order (signed by XO and us) for another Gig-E. They already have fiber to our data center and also have equipment there as well.

The order was promised to be installed March 15. Then they moved it back to April 30. Now, we've been told that they don;t know when they'll get it in.

So, unless you really don't need the bandwidth, go somewhere else.

Verio is currently very agressive, Time Warner has gotten more agressive, Savvis will now deal, and everybody wants new business to replace the Chapter 11 companies that are no longer paying.

It is still a buyers market and I don't think we've hit the floor yet.

Ironically enough, Williams is also getting very agressive. If you PM me, I can get you a contact. I'm talking VERY agressive. Their parent company is Chapter 11 but had a negotiated plan going in. Operations at the operating company are unaffected other than they are seriously looking for business.

Sprint is also getting pretty agressive, but I've yet to see a quote from them under $100 a meg.

Good luck. Hope teh info helps. Remember, run from XO is you actually need a working and installed service.

Thanks for the info headsurfer. Ill have to look again at going with xo now, specially if the stuff is already in your fac and they are screwing you like this. Time to call williams I guess. Also I couldnt get Timewarner below 100 ameg even in their own facility w/ a high comitted rate.

I doubt youll ever see time warner at under a 100 at least not for a long time, im friends with the husband of a sales rep or sales manager dont remember which one anyhow, their pricing was still kinda expensive, more expensive then a number of their competitors, but if you committ to a large amount im sure they could get fairly agressive. You have to remember time warner bgp routes their bandwidth, thats more expensive to do.

Just as an FYI, in our experience, and bear in mind that we spend over $350k per month with them overall, they would never let Yipes or Internap under price them. At the same time, they will certainly not beat Verio or Cogent.

How much is Verio? Is that the second cheapest next to Cogent? Why you putting them together?

Thank for the tip headsurfer, if you can send me that contact at williams I would appreciate

so Far it seems TW is out best bet, I just dont' like their peering that much :(

I've heard of Verio pricing around $95/Mbps.

Drew

Originally posted by drewnick
I've heard of Verio pricing around $95/Mbps.

I've only seen them get this competitive on a GigE circuit.

So you have to fork out $95,000 in cash every month? In order to get $95/mbps from Verio?

Originally posted by ClusterMania
So you have to fork out $95,000 in cash every month? In order to get $95/mbps from Verio?

I woudl think, and EXPECT so ..

do you think a company woudl bring fiber into a building and charge 95 bucks a Mbit unless you buying ALLOT

it costs allot of money to do so

Hmm, what about colos? Verio isn't in much colos? I don't think a cross connect is much trouble.

Originally posted by ClusterMania
Hmm, what about colos? Verio isn't in much colos? I don't think a cross connect is much trouble.

They better hope to still be in carrier neutral facilities. They dont have many of their own buildings open anymore. And chances are if you get a gige in a neutral fac your going to have a cross connect fee of a few grand each month.

You might try telseon, they can get you to verio from anywhere thats lit by them, which is any decent sized building in decent sized markets, and their pricing is very cheap.

Too bad they don't advertise how much they charge like Cogent does =/ All carriers should have a daily updated webpage with bandwidth prices instead of keeping everyone in the dark. I am sure companys act as customers to check out competitors pricing all the time.