The Day The Ricochet Died
from the a-moment-of-no-internet-connection-in-memory-of-this-great-service dept
What a depressing day. I’ve been connecting to the internet thanks to the trusty old 56k modem the past few days as Ricochet has been unreliable at best. However, today is the day it dies for good. David Coursey over at ZDNet has an obituary for Ricochet that mimics a lot of my opinions on the subject. It is really a loss for those of us who came to rely on it for our internet connections. I’m still bitter that no one at Metricom ever figured out how to market the damn thing. Update: The San Jose Merc is running an article with quotes from plenty of folks who are upset to see the end of Ricochet. Update again: Salon is also running a Metricom obitiuary from another obsessed Ricochet user who’s distressed at losing the service. The amazing thing to me about all this is how much people care about this service that is now being lost forever. Yet another update: News.com has an article which speculates on who might be at the Ricochet auction. Interestingly, WorldCom, who has a huge investment in Metricom has said they won’t be there, and they have no plans to offer any wireless service to their customers. Craig McCaw had been interested, but has decided not to go to the auction. That leaves AT&T Wireless, AOL, and Verizon as the rumored bidders. Hopefully, one of them will resurrect the service. On a side note, the network is still working as I’m posting this from my ricochet.
