Ojai Broadband Fills ojai.net Void
By Linda Harmon
As most people know, the internet can be challenging. According to Jon Reason, owner of Ojai PC Pros and Ojai Broadband, it became even more difficult when approximately 100 Ojai.net e-mail clients found themselves out in the cold last month. Their service stopped, not because of a computer bug or glitch, but because their service provider discontinued all service without warning. Ojai.net owner Tom Sharp failed to return phone calls or e-mails by press time.
“Our internet service was disconnected rather abruptly,” said Moondance Foxmarnick, head of the technology department of Ojai Valley School, a former Ojai.net e-mail client.
Ojai.net’s Bryant Street office was closed each time Foxmarnick went there to make inquiries. She was preparing “a work-around plan” when Reason called.
“Fortunately, from Jon’s quick action we were able to continue without much impact as it was a holiday,” said Foxmarnick. “It could have impacted us greatly had Jon not stepped in.”
According to Foxmarnick, Ojai Valley School had a very good relationship with Ojai.net and went with Reason’s Ojai Broadband, intending to keep their internet vendor local.
“I’m not sure what’s going on but they have shut down all internet service,” said Reason. “Tom called me and said he was shutting it down but didn’t let any of his customers know … A lot of people have been calling me.”
Reason has been contacting as many of Ojai.net’s customers as possible to offer service, migrating the stranded accounts over to his new Ojai Broadband.
According to Reason, Sharp’s customers will have to change their e-mail addresses or pay Sharp $10 a month to keep the ojai.net address and have actual service with Ojai Broadband.
“Tom said he plans on still doing web hosting,” said Reason, who added he was trying to get a smoother transition worked out for the e-mail customers.
According to Reason, he doesn’t have the e-mail addresses of Ojai.net customers to contact them.
“I did my best to call everyone to tell them what was going on,” said Reason, “and transfer them over if they wanted.”
As of Thursday morning the Ojai.net web site was still up and offering e-mail service. The last posted service announcement was dated 5:20 p.m., Jan. 30.
Well, it happened again.. and this time i lost a huge number of contacts in my edress book… i thought jon reason was the ‘knight in shining armor’.. but he has not returned my calls .. .Andrew at the provider in the San Fernando Valley has been helpful…. now, as you can see, i am done with Ojai based stuff at last…..sad that some folks are so inconsiderate and inefficient etc…..
Wayne and Robert Maynard are the worst. I challenge them to a Network Specialist-off, regular rules apply.
I used ojai.net for 9 years until I could no longer access it this month. Not everyone seems to have lost service at the same time. Are those of us who paid in advance for 6 months now being dropped as our subscription runs out? Ojai.net could have easily notified us that service was going to be dropped – it was very irresponsible business practice to proceed the way they have.
I am so disappointed in Ojai.net. Here it is, now May 17, and I’ve not been able to access the Ojai.net servers for at least two weeks now. It is quite apparent that OJAI.NET IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE. What really is a bummer is that Ojai.net was not only held the active e-mail address for our company, but also hosted our website. Well, isn’t that a bunch of crap. I’ve been trying to contact them (or should I say he – Tom Sharp is it?) for the past two weeks, to no avail. What this means is that not only do we need to assign a new e-mail address to the company, but we must have our website redesigned, at an expense, of course. I wonder what that’s going to do for business?
The people who started and ran the Alliance Information were very helpful and friendly, I hope they are ok. I was very happy with the $5 a month fee when i moved out of the ojai area. I send out huge amount emails and am; listed at that edress on literature for the Save Montebello Hllls Sierra Club Task Force. (I learned how to be a good activist in Ojai.) Who is the one saying that if we pay $10 a month we can keep our ojai.net edress? I hope that is not a rip-ioff. Does anyone have the true information? Please help me…we have a DEIR for a really horrible project and I need to notify everyone to come out and request an extension to the comment period….
Wow how refreshing! This blog is not like all the others. People are talking intelligently and offering real data about the issue the blog is about. The people that disagree do so with civility.
We’ve been using Ventura Highspeed for our Internet and business Website for quite some time now, and could not be happier. The guys that run it are all from Ojai. Give them a call, they know what customer service is all about. 805-643-4375
Don’t ISPs fall under the auspices of the Public Utilities Commission? Don’t they have certain basic responsibilities as spelled out by law?
We use Ojai.net as our business web-host and e-mail.
Ojai.net closed their Bryant Street location close to a year ago, if not longer.
We have not received an invoice from them in I don’t know how long, but they always cash the checks.
We received no notification that the Maynards’ were no longer operating the business. I’ve never even heard of Tom Sharp.
Phone calls and e-mails are never returned.
The Maynards’ always responded to our phone calls and e-mails and were always quite helpful.
Our website is still up an running with no problems.
E-mail service is sporadic. I’ve sent e-mails to clients only to find that they were never received or they’ve taken up to a week to be delivered.
It’s frustrating!
This was a very confusing article.
Here is my truth.
Ojai.Net stopped providing DSL internet service as of January 1st 2009 without any notification to its customers.
Dial-up service was disconnected around February 1st, 2009 without notification.
The primary DNS server was down last Friday February 20th stopping most people from accessing the Ojai.net e-mail and other e-mail and web sites hosted by ojai.net. This is now back up and running.
Ojai.net e-mail and hosting service has been up and down a number of times.
E-Mail and web hosting service is still being offered by Ojai.net
Phone calls and e-mail complaints are not receiving a response from Ojai.net.
OjaiBroadband.net offers Dial-up and DSL internet service with free e-mail in the format of you@ojaimail.com.
confused – you seem to be in the minority. I’ve used ojai.net for both business and a non-profit website for many years. During the 4th quarter of last year things started changing – you couldn’t get ahold of Tom, if you did manage to and get him to come to your office he would with an angry attitude. Then eventually he disappeared completely. I tried to find it at both the Oak View and Ojai locations – and was told at both places by other tenants that nobody ever went in or out of those offices. Emails to him and calls were never returned.
Luckily right before Christmas we changed and went with sbcglobal.net and have been very happy. And we think we only lost a minimal amount of emails that got caught at ojai.net.
At this point in time I still have the website with them but it is offline – has been for a while. I will have to find a new host for that I guess.
I agree about Wayne and Robert. They at least always called you back. I’m still wondering what happened to Tom and why he screwed all his customers.
I had an Ojai.net account for about 10 years- and suddenly, in December, it was gone. I phoned and left messages and e-mailed Ojai.net’s contact information (from another account) at least a dozen times without success.
Unfortunately, Ojai.net was my business account and it was impossible to retrieve all of my contacts from a service that was closed.
They have not always been like that. When the business was owned and operated by Wayne and Robert Maynard, you could always talk to a live human being sooner or later, and they always returned email.
If you can even get to the Ojai.net website, you’ll notice that there is no longer a webmail option. In addition, if you have been paying them for dial-up as a back-up option for getting online in the event that your broadband connection goes down , you’ll discover that you can no longer go online using their dial-up service.
We have email with ojai.net. There has been no noticeable interruption. It’s working right now. We have not been contacted by anyone. The last line of your article seems to contradict the rest of your article. What gives? Seems like you are trying to route ojai.net biz somewhere else. Not getting a return call from ojai.net means nothing. They have always been like that!