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The company says an e-mail warning of the loss of a local access number was a mistake, but many are not reassured.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 1, 2001
SPRING HILL -- A late-blooming computer junkie, 76-year-old Robert Burns of Timber Pines relies upon America Online to access the virtual world.
He sends e-mail to family in Maryland and friends in Maine. He scans eBay for good deals, sometimes auctioning postcards from a 2,500-piece collection. When sleep fails him, rather than toss and turn, Burns heads to his well-accessorized Dell and logs on to AOL.
"I had my heart operation four years ago. I can't cut the grass no more," the retired insurance casualty underwriter said. "When you get our age, what else can you do?"
The day before Thanksgiving, AOL's familiar "You've got mail" voice brought Burns and hundreds of other Hernando County subscribers an unpleasant message from the AOLnet operations team.
"One of the phone numbers you recently used to connect to the America Online service -- 352-683-3652 -- is going to be unavailable in the very near future," the message, labeled urgent, announced. "We apologize for any inconvenience. But we want to be sure you replace this number immediately, if you want to continue connecting from this locality."
The company has no other local phone numbers.
AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said a temporary database error inadvertently removed the number from the company's list of access points. That glitch triggered an automatic e-mail system to alert subscribers about a change that had not really happened, he explained.
"That number will not be going away," Graham said.
The same people who got the incorrect number cancellation notice will get another e-mail describing what happened, he added, noting that no one should have lost contact with the Internet server.
"It may have resulted in some confusion, for which we apologize," Graham said.
When its Weeki Wachee-based local access number is not available, AOL offers long distance access through Gainesville, Leesburg or Ocala within the 352 area code. The company's nationwide 800 number costs 10 cents per minute. And signing up with AOL Time Warner's cable-based Internet system costs about twice the dialup service fee.
By recommending it, AOL seemed to be shoving its customers toward new technology without much finesse, Burns said.
"You'd think something as big as AOL could have enough swing to get a local phone number," he said.
The same holds true for other major services, contended Margaret Cowley of Spring Hill, another AOL user.
Cowley had no interest in the high-speed line because her main uses -- banking, correspondence and online bridge -- don't require such a quantum leap. Yet when she checked with providers AT&T Worldnet and Prodigy, she found no Hernando numbers for them.
Earthlink and MSN had one number apiece.
Local servers cost less, Cowley said, but past bad experiences make those an unattractive choice for her. And a piggyback phone line into AOL seemed a curious but possible alternative.
A computer user since 1957, 61-year-old Cowley said she depends on the Internet and that if local access were to disappear, it would not hinder her.
"I will find a solution," she said.
Local Internet service providers experienced a small windfall from AOL's miscue, said Madeline Urso, operator of Spring Hill-based sunnyflorida.net.
"We're picking up AOL (members)," Urso said. "Saturday, it was pretty busy."
Many subscribers have limited incomes, she noted, and they sought the best available service at the lowest possible cost. Local servers are less expensive than the nationals, and some have stores that offer classes, equipment and repairs, she said. However, Urso added, many do not have 24-hour technical assistance, which can leave subscribers in the lurch for hours.
"I don't know why the big companies are backing out," she said. "They just don't realize Spring Hill is going to grow just like Clearwater did."
Burns said he preferred to keep AOL, because he enjoys the service and finds its telephone technicians very helpful. There's also the ease factor -- why change your e-mail address and related files if you don't have to?
The way AOL handled the matter left a bad taste for Burns and many others, regardless.
"The e-mail just showed up on the computer," he complained. "No advance notice. No nothing."
Trying to get answers from AOL only made things worse, said Lillian Crosthwaite, another disgruntled Hernando County subscriber, in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times.
"I have telephoned three times and gotten nowhere," she wrote. "They cannot tell you when this number is to be suspended, whether or not another one will be provided, or what their plans are for this area. . . . Sounds as though they are trying to squeeze out the dialup customer."
AOL spokesman Graham repeated apologies for the company and hoped for the best.