For off-campus students such as Kelly Harry (senior-management science and information systems), the 16-day suspension of cable Internet access in December hasn't paid off yet. The bill she received when she arrived back at school showed charges from the period she lost the cable modem, when AT&T's Internet supplier Excite@Home shut down the network and Adelphia took over as the local provider.

"They didn't deduct anything," Harry said of the December AT&T bill.

AT&T spokesman Dan Garfinkel said Adelphia is now handling the crediting procedures.

Bill Pekarski, spokesperson for Adelphia, said Adelphia will uphold AT&T's promise to credit customers two free days of Internet access for every one day that the service was suspended.

About 5,600 customers in the region went without Internet from Dec. 1 to 16, Joe Rocco, general manager for Adelphia in State College, said.

"Anyone whose bill cycled prior to the 17th of December would not have seen that credit on the bill," Rocco said, adding that the 32-day credit will appear for customers on the next bill and deduct about $43.

Another glitch customers dealt with after the change in Internet providers was in the number of computers that could have IP addresses.

"There are new modems with the Power Link service that provide up to four IP addresses," Rocco said. Adelphia has been deploying these new modems at the customer's request.

Some customers resorted to other methods for accessing the Internet at home during the first few weeks of December.

"There was a group of customers that switched to dial-up modem and whatever alternates they were able to use," Rocco said.

Harry said she received a disc offering AT&T dial-up service, but opted to use the Internet on campus.

"It was inconvenient, especially at the end of the semester, because we had papers to write," she said.