Years ago I got a letter from a small ISP named JPS. the letter offered me a nice business account with dialup, generous Web hosting, 20 e-mail boxes, etc. for $300/yr. It came at the right time, so I took them up on it. Worked fine and I was happy.

Set up a handful of clients on JPS. They were happy too.

JPS was bought by OneMain. Grandfathered in the JPS accounts, but the techs told me to make sure I kept the JPS accounts because that level of service would cost me a lot more now.

Got DSL from OneMain - again a business account with a business rep to talk to if anything went wrong. Cayman router too. Took a while to get it in, but it worked just fine.

Earthlink bought OneMain. They specified changes in logins, etc. but nothing earth shattering - until I found out there was no business DSL rep any more, it was all home level support. Support didn't even know what a router was ("what kind of modem do you have? A what? What's that?").

Then - - - the trouble began for real. An e-mail arrived telling me JPS's servers were all shutting down and my accounts would all be transferred to Earthlink accounts.

OK, problem - had to seize control of a couple of the client accounts through Network Solutions because the "mailto" security mailboxes pointed to a defunct JPS server. Huge hassle, but at least I didn't have to forge any paperwork this time.

Oh, sheesh! Aliased "family pack" email boxes - no real business e-mail at Earthlink. OK, real dumb, but I can live with it, my clients can live with it . . .

Then I found I couldn't access Earthlink ftp servers through my DSL account (any other ftp server in the world, yes, but not the ones hosting my site and my client's sites). 15 hours on tech support to find out it wasn't going to be fixed.

Finally I was sent to Mindspring tech (supposed to be the best techs Earthlink owned), and they gave me a secret code to get hosted on a Mindspring server in Virginia. They said Mindspring had real servers and real hosting, unlike Earthlink, but it was more money for less.

All in all about 20 hours on hold with OneMain, Earthlink and Mindspring tech support and no reasonable solution. Found out what set this whole fiasco moving though - Earthlink owed all the JPS/OneMain servers to the original founder of JPS and he wanted them back.

Then the letter telling me Earthlink was converting my DSL account to dial-up.

Then a letter saying that one was wrong, I could have Earthlink DSL, but DSL would be disconnected for three weeks in the transition, and they wouldn't use my $500 Cayman router, I had to buy a $250 bridge (which they were pleased to call a "modem").

Then I remembered some 9 months ago I had to seize control of a client's Web site (had to use forged paperwork that time because the registered company didn't exist and had never existed). Their ISP was 90% defunct and couldn't be contacted. Stumbled across a small ISP, Mooglobal, that had provided co-location to that ISP. So, after a great deal of hassle and negotioation, including signing papers certifying that I solicited Moonglobal, not the other way around, I got the client on them.

So I called Moonglobal sales. "Please hold, all our agents are currently helping other customers". OK, I know "all our agents" is named Roger.

So today everything is up on Moonglobal, where I know the administrator and the tech support guys by first and last name. Everything works fine, real e-mail servers, plenty of Web space, Unix hosting, (they have Win and Mac too) and ftp works just fine. They're arranging a new DSL account (and there won't be 3 weeks dead time because it's on a different phone number), and they like Cayman routers just fine. Cost is a couple bucks a year more than JPS was, but I get stats on every Web page.

Now I pray Earthlink doesn't buy them.

Eearthlink was founded, I understand, with CoS money. Don't know how much money or influence they have in Earthlink now.