Warning signs
No one denies that the market is pretty grim these days. But you can avoid ISP shutdown shock nonetheless if you know what to look for. To find warning signs, keep tabs on your own ISP as well as the Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) that work with your ISP, such as troubled provider Covad. CLECs lease lines, co-location space, and equipment to ISPs and provide an alternative to your local telco's data services.

Clear indicators
To check up on prominent, publicly traded companies in trouble, such as Covad, simply read news headlines and track the company's stock prices. Bad headlines and dropping prices generally mean trouble. Covad, for example, hired a flock of accountants and repeatedly delayed filing its fourth quarter financial results this May. After peaking at $30.56 per share in June 2000, its stock now trades around $1 per share. Covad laid off 800 employees in late 2000 and is facing delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange. If your ISP gets its DSL from Covad, take note.

Other providers facing financial trouble display similar signals:

• Rhythms NetConnections stock once traded at $35.63 but plummeted to a mere 38 cents this spring. The Nasdaq also sent Rhythms a delisting notice.
• High-speed access provider DSL.net continues to report substantial losses. Its stock trades around $1 per share.
• Three ISPs that focus on providing access to businesses--mPower, Genuity, and CAIS Internet--have all slashed their workforces dramatically and cut back services in recent months.
• PSINet, the last independent, national ISP to offer business IP services, announced that it had filed for bankruptcy June 1.

Not-so-obvious signs

Suggestion: Keep a floppy disk or CD on hand. Most large computer stores provide free disks from big ISPs that enable you to get back online in a hurry if your current connection goes down. Keep a few around as backup.

If you don't get access from a publicly traded company, how can you tell when your provider is in trouble?

"Watch the ISP's level of service," cautions Darryl Schoolar, senior analyst with Cahners In-Stat, which studies digital communications. "If you can't reach anyone in customer service and your e-mail and Internet connections become unreliable, you're in trouble." You should also start considering other options, he adds, if:

• You can never reach the ISP's customer service representatives.
• The ISP asks you to pay by cash or check and won't take a credit card.
• Your e-mail service shuts down often or ceases to work altogether.

Help from the Net community
Look for horror stories about your ISP. For example, check postings on the Consumers' Voice Web site or watch for consumer alerts on the Web site of your local Better Business Bureau. Also, watch for complaints and warnings posted on sites such as Slashdot and DSLreports, which serve as community forums for ISP customers, and CNET's own Message Boards.

"I normally find out that an ISP is failing when employees are laid off and start to post semi-inside information on the boards or when they e-mail me directly, and if I can confirm the news, it goes onto our home page," says Justin Beech, founder of DSLreports.

Tell me where to turn when my ISP buys the farm