earthlink

Business

EarthLink provides a variety of Internet connection types, including dial-up, DSL, satellite, and cable. EarthLink also offers a different types of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone services. One type provides both DSL and home voice service which makes VOIP service practical for DSL users. The support section of the EarthLink website has detailed instructions for configuring Windows and Mac OS to access the company's network, either with the EarthLink software or with those operating systems' standard networking features. Linux is not listed on EarthLink's support pages.

In addition to selling the company's various Internet connections online and by phone, EarthLink operates retail kiosks in all Fry's Electronics stores, manned by two to five representatives directly employed by EarthLink rather than Fry's. For signing up in-store, EarthLink offers customers special promotions not available elsewhere (including cash back and extended discounts). Services sold at the kiosks include PeoplePC dial-up, PeoplePC Accelerated dial-up, EarthLink Accelerated dial-up, EarthLink High Speed (including Cable, DSL, and Satellite), and EarthLink Wireless's AirCard, which provides Internet service over digital cellular signals across the United States. EarthLink provides the large majority of its users with free anti-virus software (Win 2000 & XP only).

EarthLink is currently working with the cities of Philadelphia and Anaheim in their development and implementation of the city wide wi-fi internet access. EarthLink has also teamed up with Google in to do the same in San Francisco.

History

Earthlink was founded in 1994 by Sky Dayton, supposedly after he spent an entire week trying to configure his own computer for internet access. He then soon realized the market for user-friendly ISPs. From a modest beginning of ten modems, the company has grown to include more than 2,000 POP numbers in the US—and more than 40 internationally.

On February 4, 2000, the company (then based in Pasadena, California) merged with Atlanta-founded MindSpring, making it the second-largest ISP in the U.S.— after AOL.

On June 10, 2002, EarthLink acquired PeoplePC, a value-priced dial-up service that has more dial-up access numbers than any other ISP (including AOL). PeoplePC's direct competitors are NetZero and Netscape.

In July 2005, EarthLink announced that it was closing the last of its in-house American call centers, though the company still has American call centers via out-source telecom companies. In the late 1990s, when all of EarthLink's technical support was provided through in-house call centers, the company promoted the knowledgeability of its agents specializing in its service, yet it continues to do so with its current staff.

EarthLink and Scientology

Dayton and his two financial backers are Scientologists. When this fact created controversy in the media, Dayton asserted that the idea that EarthLink was owned by the Church of Scientology was absurd, making the comparison, "It was like I'm Jewish, therefore EarthLink was owned by the state of Israel."^[1]

SIPshare

EarthLink SIPshare is a Session Initiation Protocol-based file sharing network made by Clay Shirky and David Beckemeyer.

Helio

On January 26, 2005, EarthLink announced that it had formed an agreement with Korean cellphone service provider SK Telecom to jointly own and operate a new MVNO in the US wireless marketplace. The name of this new company is Helio. The network is expected to commence operations sometime in Spring 2006. Helio's business model revolves around providing advanced wireless devices not commonly seen for sale in the US market to technology-savvy consumers.

Aluria Software, LLC

Aluria Software, LLC was a privately held company founded in 1999 and based in Orlando, Florida. On August 22, 2005 EarthLink, Inc. announced an agreement to acquire Aluria Software's assets; thus making Aluria Software a division of EarthLink. ^[2]

Aluria Software develops and markets security and protection products for consumers, small businesses, and enterprise customers.

DNS controversy

In August 2006 EarthLink teamed up with Yahoo and Barefruit to redirect web browser users accessing nonexistent domains to a page containing sponsored search results, ads, and a Yahoo search form. The DNS protocol requires that a query for a nonexistent domain must return the "NXDOMAIN" error response. Instead of this response, EarthLink's DNS servers return several IP addresses for the HTTP servers that implement their redirection service. While such redirection might be helpful to users of some web browsers, it breaks the functionality of many other internet applications, which assume that the DNS is implemented according to the standard specifications. EarthLink's redirection also prevents the user's web browser from detecting NXDOMAIN errors and handling them according to the user's preference.

Comments left in the official Earthlink blog announcing the feature [1] and news aggregators like Slashdot [2] have been overwhelmingly negative. In 2003, Verisign implemented a similar feature called Site Finder for all .com and .net domains. Verisign ultimately reversed the change after the ensuing controversy and under pressure from ICANN. While Site Finder affected all Internet users, Earthlink's redirection feature is only applicable to Earthlink ISP customers. In contrast with Verisign's policy of not mentioning the effect of Site Finder on non-HTTP-based services, EarthLink says it is trying to minimize the impact on such uses of DNS, which is impossible since a DNS query doesn't contain any information that can be used by the DNS server to determine whether the addresses obtained from the query will be used for HTTP or other traffic.

After about a month of complaints on the blog, EarthLink made available two DNS servers that it says are unaffected by the service and should properly return NXDOMAIN for all 'dead' domain names. [3] These must be manually configured on machines of customers who wish to use them. The company says it will not provide technical support for these alternate servers.

References

1. ^ Larry Armstrong. "The Mac of Internet Providers." Business Week December 15, 1997
2. ^ http://www.earthlink.net/about/press/pr_aluria_acquisition/

External links

• Official homepage of EarthLink
• History of EarthLink
• EarthLink SIPshare
• Consumer complaints about Earthlink DSL Cancellation Disputes
• Official EarthLink Blog entry regarding the broken DNS dispute

Business data

• Earthlink, Inc. at Google Finance
• Earthlink, Inc. at Yahoo Finance
• Earthlink, Inc. at Hoover's
• Earthlink, Inc. at Reuters
• Earthlink, Inc. SEC filings at EDGAR Online
• Earthlink, Inc. SEC filings at the Securities and Exchange Commission