Siricomm Down
Posted on Nov 27, 2007 - 8:19pm by Don Rogers in Technology
…and maybe out!
Subscribers to the Siricomm Truckstop Wifi service may have noticed that they cannot get on-line through Sircomm at this time. A statement on their website reads:
Effective November 19, 2007, the SiriCOMM network is not providing service to customers. The outage is the result of a dispute between SiriCOMM and its network service provider, ViaSat. SiriCOMM is working to resolve its issues with ViaSat.
From Market Wire:
The network will remain inactive pending resolution of certain key issues, including non-payment. “We are very disappointed at the actions taken by ViaSat and we are continuing to work diligently to remedy the situation,” said Mark Grannell, President and CEO of SiriCOMM, Inc.
Siricomm stock closed at .04 today after a $1 high last December and has shown a steady decline since July.
I seem to remember an almost identical statement fromTruckstop.net a few years ago when they went belly-up. Siricomm provides wifi service mainly to Pilot and Loves truckstops. Hopefully they are able to resolve their dispute, loss of service for a second time in these facilities will leave a large hole in wifi access.
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Pilot truckstop has a moderate medium speed internet with wandering wifi.But the company has implemented a broadband throttle to deter p2p file sharing,but they limit everyone at 30k down but 100k up.And if you come to Pilot with current torrent files downloading,you will find this produces an error 404.and the tracker will (temp)ban you.
At least the Flying J will let you retain your unused bandwidth limit the next time you buy “time.” Looks like they clearly state it all up front now.
Also there was lag in Siricom’s service due to the uplink being a dial up speed type land line. The downlink was from the satelite. This causes latency in the service, slowing it down. The only way to get around the latency is to run an ISDN line to all the sites at around $1000 a month not to mention the installation fees and the property owner issues that go along with that. Latency is best described as a delay in the information stream due to the time it takes for the information to reach the satelite in outer space and return the desired information to earth. You see the same thing in your network news when there is a reporter on the other side of the globe. you get a couple seconds of delay before the reporter reacts to the question. That couple of seconds is on some highly expensive network television gear. Think about what the quality of equipment was that Siricom had installed at truckstops and you will see the reason that it would eventually fail.
Even the ‘J’ has a limit. I found out the hard way. I had paid for a 24hr block only to have to pay for it again in 6 hrs. I suppose the others do, too. You will have to read their Terms of Service agreements. I read the Flying J’s and it did not give a specific limit. It only said something about within reason, whatever that means to them.
Rusty
You don’t get unlimited bandwidth on a 24 hour block. You have to purchase a yearly useage account to get unlimited usage. From what I heard, it is the downloading of MP3’s that kills Flying “j’s” bandwidth. programs such as “Bearshare” and “Limewire” not to mention legal accounts like “Itunes”. If you buy a years worth of service you won’t get kicked off when you start using it fully. You may get lag at times due to high usage but you won’t get kicked.
Siricomm was toast as soon as everyone figured out they expected drivers to do nothing more than browse. Simply watching streamed video daily was enough to put you over their limit(5GB).
Hey guys, I don’t mind paying, but I’M GOING TO USE THE SERVICE, not just browse.
Expect people to download patches for games, game demos, itunes (music AND video), free webisodes and fan films (like the star trek ones), and so on.
I’m getting a broadband card from verizon pretty soon. It will be much easier to keep up wilth school on the road that way. I’m attending college online, while driving over the road 48 states.
I did prefer siricom to flying j, though. Stupid flying J will disconnect you if you exceed some download/bandwidth level. Then you have to pay again to get back on.
The reason Flying J has restrictions on bandwidth is in the past some drivers were loading down the network making it unusable for others. And its your guess as to what they were downloading so much! For the casual users that didnt wan to pay a fee for more time they imposed restrictions so that all have equal access to the network. So, the next time you want to be so critical of something find out the reason for it. Same way for the rest of the industry, everybody wants to complain about the treatment we get but they are quick to put the blame on others. As for Siricomm, their internet was accomplished with the use of satellites, hence the sorry service. Viasat was giving the bandwidth to users that paid more $$.
I found the siricomm service adequate enough to pay the yearly rate for the last two or three years.
when they went off line I still had 3 months prepaid.
I doubt I will see a refund. what a lousy way to run a business. they didn’t bother to notify subscribers by email. I need the internet to pay my bills since I’m constántly on the road. I’ve been paying a daily rate with one of the other wifi providers at the truckstops once or twice a week since siricomm went down. this screws me financially since I was prepaid at sirifomm. thanks for lousy treatment. I will be switching to a broadband wireless card from one of the cell phone providers.
They filed for chapter11 ..Never coming back. Can you say Bankrupt
I’ve never been able to figure out why would anyone like to use POS like SiriCOMM or any other wi-fi heavily overpriced services. I pay $30/month for additional Internet Service from T-Mobile and I don’t even have to park to use it. Think about it, dont we all need to know fuel price BEFORE we pull into truckstop to get into wi-fi coverage??? That’s nuts – they will all go belly up, and wi-fi will be free on every trucsktop in a few months, Internet over cellphone rulez
Siricomm was a waste anyways, TA and Flying J and Idleaire have faster Wifi Speeds and less hassle
TA service is terrible, slow slow slow. not as slow as siricomm was….
Wondering why I could not access it over the holiday weekend!
With the cost of fuel and everything else, one wonders why the truck stops don’t take it over themselves as a free perk! But then, that would be helping the drivers!