Satellite broadband provider Aramiska has informed customers that it is shutting down as of today — and left many just a few hours to find an alternative service provider.
For many customers looking to get online in remote and rural areas Aramiska's satellite service has at times been the only option as they were too far from the nearest broadband-enabled telephone exchange or cable networks.
Now those customers have been told by the company their connection will be going down today.
An email from Aramiska, sent out at around 10:00(GMT), stated: "We regret to inform you that Aramiska and its services are shutting down and the company will be unable to provide you with Internet access after today, 27 January, 2006."
One aggrieved customer, Neil Boreland, told ZDNet UK sister site silicon.com that email notification leaves him with just seven hours to find an alternative provider.
He added: "I wonder how many rural businesses are going to go bust because they rely on satellite broadband supplied by this company.
"I think it's absolutely disgusting that customers who have been paying a premium for these services are given such little notice."
Aramiska, in association with a company called eHotspot, provided wireless Internet access to 200 rural communities around the UK. It also provided connectivity to community broadband schemes up and down the country.
Nobody was answering the phones at Aramiska.
Talkback
So much for customer care !!! It's amazing what a coporate company like Aramiska can get away with - giving only a few hours notice to its dedicated customers was a complete kick in the face.
When we received the notification email we dismissed it - believing it was spoofed as no name was signed at the bottom, it wasn't personalised and it was only a couple of lines long. Adding to this, a time frame of 1 days noticed made it less believing.
Aramiska has caused chaos for rural broadband schemes at the worst time possible .... the weekend!!!!
Companies should give careful consideration as to where their business websites are located; even living in a city I would host mine at a reliable data center rather than at the end of a business-class DSL circuit. Then, at least, customers can enter orders via the website, and POTS dial-up would suffice until I could find a replacement broadband provider.
The widespread availability of 3G/EvDO is going to cut heavily into satellite broadband provider's market share.
Well I can do nothing but agree wih everyone elses comment on here. We never even recieved an email notifacation all we found one page can not be displayed when trying to access the internet. After spending sometime searching I stumble accross a tiny little statement hidden on the Aramiska website! We are now left with NO internet access cripperling the business. Left high and dry by a company who obviously does not care about what where its customers. Where do we stand now I find mself asking!!?? I a determined to seek justice on this matter and will not sit back and allow a company to dismiss its customers who pay above and beyond!!
Hi,
We are a WISP who were a MAJOR customer/user of Aramiska services.
Fortunately, we were already a long way down the road of changing supplier (saw & recognised the writing on the wall !!) and as such, are already implementing that change.
Should any affected ex Aramiska customers in either Spain or the UK want to contact us, we would be happy to give them information about our immediately available/deployable alternative solutions.
Regards,
Peter Reed-Forrester
Wi-Surf S.L.
Tel: +34 96 649 4158
Email: prf@wi-surf.com
Aramiska cusromers ?
we can help you http://www.acpl-france.com/index.html
or mail us to contact@acpl-france.com
I was one of the luckless many that got the plug pulled on me.
Does anyone know WHY this happened - and WHY could they not keep the service going for a couple of weeks to let us more gracefully switch?
Was it legal or financial?
Hello Everybody,
All the ex Aramiska customers can find valid alternatives on
http://www.broadsat.com/
We can study a personalized solution for all your problems
we too thought this must be joke but when i rang the customer support line we found out it was true
i guess the arc boxes are now usless and are as good as scrap
we were having probs with thte service for about a month with them telling us services such as web accses to emails being non exsistant where as 1 month before they had given me links and told me how to set it up !!!!
on the thursday we had ordered another bbnad service bu ths still leaves us with a 28 day wait!!
our compnay almost complete relies on the service
lucky we had a isdn back up which seems to be holding up but not sure for how long!!!
Hello Everybody,
All the ex Aramiska customers can find valid alternatives on
http://www.broadsat.com/
We can study a personalized solution for all your problems
I live in a small rural communty affected by the collapse of Aramiska. I'm having to use dial-up to post this so I'm not totally cut off. However, before everyone blames Aramiska for their woes, how about looking back a couple of years? How was BT allowed to claim that the roll-out of broadband was complete in the UK when it plainly wasn't? The exchange in the village of Plaistow, West Sussex has only something like 175 subscribers so it was never going to reach BT's magic 250 trigger level. Why was BT permitted to ignore the plight of small communities like this? When you concider the enormous profits that BT regularly declare 4 or 5 exchanges in England could, surely, have benefitted from a little largesse from such a giant or would someones head have rolled for deminishing some shareholders' dividend? I'm personally disgusted with BT (in case you hadn't noticed).
Free kit for ex Aramiska customers.
We are a broadband satellite supplier and can help get ex Aramiska customers back on line.
Please call 01763 250418
www.ethnetuk.com
we didn't receive any notification at all - no email - nothing, apart from no internet connection from Friday afternoon...
We run 2 internet businesses from home and live in rural Wales where it is impossible to get ADSL broadband - to say we're stuffed is putting it politely!
We signed up for Aramiska two or so years ago and have always sand their praises. We are in rural Wales and at the time had no alternatives.
We did get the warning email (at 11am) and the system stopped at 3:30pm. We have ordered broadband now from BT although we have to wait upto 28days. Luckily we could fall back to our previous ISDN system although going from a 2Mb to 64k is quite a shock and with 40 users it is proving fun. NOT!
Does anyone think a company will take over the infrastructure so we can use our kit again or is in >£3K down the drain. Maybe the Arc boxes will make good door stops in the mean time.
Lets hope BT can provide a better service. At least they are less likely to go bust.
Do you own your arc ?
or do you have it on a lease agreement.....
I was looking at Aramiska for a community broadband service, and one of the residents pointed out a clause in the lease agreement,
that said they were not responsible for the service.
You may wish to check your agreement with the lease company as you may still be liable for payments even though service is not available.
I could be wrong but it is worth checking.
We were also one of those companys hit by Aramiska, we got our email at 10:30am and the network went down at around 15:30. All i can say is "Thank's a Bunch Aramiska". If anybody is thinking of taking Legal action. Let me know. Im sure they can't be allowed to get away with this. We have now ordered BT Broadband and will be using the arc box to punch a whole through the wall for the cable to go through.
To Matt:
Matt, it was Finantial. For sure. They've been looking for a solution for about 2 years.
I am (was) no Aramiska customer but I know Aramiska quite well. I am shock with the way they decided to go off the market. I cannot understand this "I don't give a damned sh.." strategy.
BTW, if you have an ARC is not worth much and you're thinking to make some profit out of it, it's going to be very unlikely. The software is useful when used on an enviroment similar to aramiska's and the hardware is old stuff, just enough to have it working.
Sorry for you guys.
Till Last week I was working for Aramiska. Even I was only informed on Friday 10:30. Those f*cking bastards, 4 months ago I left my previous Job, at that time they they should already have known about the bad situation, but they were lying, When I was working there for 2 weeks I started to hear some bad rumors, there should come an aquisition or an purchase by another company.Last week there was even a newyears reception, and then they told us a that another company was going to buy aramiska, but we should not have fear, everything was already for 100% agreed but they could not yet tell which company. The management was there also, Those hypocrite bastards were drinking big pints and laughing like everything was normal.
Because I didn't had to do a shift that friday, I was at home. and then they called me at 10:30, normally my next shift was on sunday, but I didn't had to come anymore, no more job.
I do also feel with those who were relying on Aramiska. If any off you wou like to have some more info about your arc box, maybe you can use it for another purpose, I can maybe help you with some extra info about the arc. ,Maybe you want to know how to get get in that box.
I heard that SATLYNX had come to the rescue of many of the ex-Aramiska customers already. The service I now have from them (yes, it only took 3 days!) is excellent. I wish I had gone to Avonline earlier, they are much more customer friendly and the service flies!
I was really sorry to hear about so many Aramiska customers being cut off last week.
I and all the companies I know are trying hard to help out and your patience in getting reconnected appreciated.
Best regards, Eric. http://www.satsig.net/
Any information on the receiver retained
Has anyone managed to get their domain name transferred to another ISP.
I have managed to get broadband up and running with BT but have been told by them that Aramiska needs to change the IPS TAG to BTNAMES
As Aramiska are not answering emails or phone calls i would be intrested if anyone has any advice
Aramiska's NOC rocks after all, mate. Groetjes van een ex-collega.
I guess I was lucky in the sense that my contract ended on the 10th of January (thank God, the service was dreadful!!) But I'm now stuck with a satellite dish on the side of my house even though I've paid the deinstall fee. Has anyone got any ideas if the equipment will ever be recovered by whoever it was leased from - Siemens I think?
I made the jump to Tiscali as soon as our exchange was BB enabled due to the apalling service Aramiska & Ehotspot were providing. Several others within my village however, are not as lucky. I understood from a neighbour that ehotspot have stated that the service was to be back on line as early as this Wednesday (15th Feb) via an alternative satellite supplier. As we have now lost access to all ehotspot mail (since Saturday) and ehotspot web pages are now no longer available on the web, can we assume the worst...
Do eHotspot care for their customers?
It seems that eHotspot are not enabling all customers access to their new satellite setup follwoing collapse of Aramiska. Those in the North of Peterborough area are yet to be given access to services provided by eHotpsot more than a week after service was due to be restored. Numerous e-mails, telephone calls and an official complaint have elicited zero response.
I'd be interested if anyone else is suffering this problem.
How do i get intouch with the guy who is willing to help with the arc box
any one been able to log into the aramiska arc box, so that it could be used for something else.
WARNING do not go with Ehotspot. I have had continual problems with them since February 2005. Problems have never been resolved by them. Have finally got access to broadband via my bt line so am moving to that without a second thought. Service and support from Ehotspot is diabolical
The only information from ehotspot was
a) your service will not be available because of aramisca
and
b) we are coming for our box.
My reply was that they could have their box when they have reinbursed me with;
the installation costs £99
the last three months direct debits of a useless service.
The van did turn up. The engeneers did see me and my son.
They asked " er do you know where Mrs Smith lives", there was a Mrs Smith on satalite;-)
They moved off and never came back.
I have a nice box that flashes on my outside wall. I tell every one that it's a specialised burglar alarm.
After singing the praises of ehotspot for nearley two years, the next bit is unprinable.
This happene las year and we went over to ADSL. What a difference:-))