Given the recent VZ thread, I thought I'd show why my new house has crap Internet.
The story: A piece of underground cable went bad. The techs didn't pull new underground cable. They decided it was better to do it "arial" (if you can call 2 feet "arial"). They took apart the two pedestals on either side of the break and ran a new strand of RG6 (yes, the same stuff you use inside your home, not the outside-plant rated stuff) tied to trees with rope.
These pedestals have looked like this for months apparently. I called the 800 # and complained, they rolled a truck. The guy didn't even come in my house, just gave me his supervisor's number and said that he's a home tech, the outside plant guys are the problem and he can't fix it. A second guy rolled up while we were chatting and told me he had a call around the block for the same thing. They've been taking complaints about this for months and are as tired of it as we are. I assured them I was more tired of it, given he was getting paid while I was paying, but I understood their situation.
Of course, since the other "broadband" option at my house is 1 Mbps Verizon DSL, I don't have much leverage.
In a message written on Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 04:12:22PM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
The story: A piece of underground cable went bad. The techs didn't pull new underground cable. They decided it was better to do it "arial" (if you can call 2 feet "arial"). They took apart the two pedestals on either side of the break and ran a new strand of RG6 (yes, the same stuff you use inside your home, not the outside-plant rated stuff) tied to trees with rope.
That cable definitely needs to be removed in the interest of... uhh... "community safety". Yeah, that's it. You're worried about the puppies and children hurting themselves.
(Double-mega-extra-bonus points if you convince your local city services to do it!)
The story: A piece of underground cable went bad. The techs didn't pull =
new underground cable. They decided it was better to do it "arial" (if =
you can call 2 feet "arial"). They took apart the two pedestals on =
either side of the break and ran a new strand of RG6 (yes, the same =
stuff you use inside your home, not the outside-plant rated stuff) tied =
to trees with rope.
In Comcast's defense, sometimes the guys who do "inside" work will
try to fix things to Make Customers Happy, but they typically don't
have access to the supplies, shovels, and Ditch Witches to bury the
cable properly.
I'm not saying it's not a problem, but I'm saying maybe give the guys
who did it a little break. It's a systemic problem most here are
familiar with that you're never able to reach the right party, and
that might not get any better if you are the Comcast tech who needs
an outside plant crew to fix something.
on bainbridge, i replaced centurystink dsl (756k/256k for $65/mo) with
comcast (20m/4m for $50/mo). the installer was a knarly old dog, and
damned competent. he cleaned up old cable on the pole and where it went
underground to the house. he cleaned up the box and replaced in-house
junctions. then he accidentally left 8m of coax to get from the in-wall
cable outlet to my 'puter area, and rode off in his white van into the
sunset.
now if i could get that kind of professionalism from twt in hawaii ...
Oh to have choices... I'm still hanging on the end of a dedicated T1
and paying through the nose. I'm nearly convinced that the monthly
income from my circuit has prevented Qwest, and now Century Link from
building out DSL.
My VZ FioS install was similarly fantastic. Those guys have figured out that spending a little more time, effort and cable (cat6 in the case of VZ) goes a long, long way in keeping customers happy.
I think the issue is that the field techs wanted to get the customer up
and running. Most of the outside plant stuff is done by contractors and
it takes time to get them on the job. Sometimes a work around is the
best they can do. How long was it like that?
You're lucky. Verizon did a great job installing mine (ONT on the
backboard I put in the basement for them, handoff on ethernet rather
than MOCA, etc) but somehow never managed to get around to dispatching
anyone to actually install the permanent fiber drop (despite multiple
calls).
Fast-forward four months. I'd narrowly avoided messing up the
temporary fiber with the lawnmower (going so far as to put orange
paint on the lawn myself), but no such luck when they harvested the
corn next door.
Yes, my fiber got cut by a combine. You can't make this stuff up.
Second time around, they did in fact manage to get the fiber buried,
where I wanted it even. Had to meet with the construction survey guy,
who was more than happy to put the white paint where I wanted it.
Comcast annoys me. I never have any problems with the people you get when you call in, or the tech support people, but their contractors STINK.
At home the Comcast line boxes serving the apartments aren't even closed. They just sit open and fill up with rain until things crap out. The contractor eventually turns up when the packet loss hits 90% or so. We were out of service for weeks at a time. Even after I reported it Comcast corporate can't seem to get the contractor to give enough of a shit to close things up properly. It hasn't crapped out in awhile but we've had a drought. I'm sure it'll start acting up again once fall gets here.
At the office we have a similar issue. They've been bombarding us with ads non-stop, even now, we get a new Comcast ad about twice a week. In mid-June we ordered a line as a backup for our other line and to replace the phone service because the budget is tight. They told us we'd have service by the end of the month. We arranged for the telco to drop Long Distance service on the lines at that time to keep the numbers live in case there was a delay in porting out. (Telco said they'd drop the service but then went ahead billed us for it anyway, but that's another story). Anyway, Comcast contractor shows up to do their pre-wire inspection and tells me they don't have service anywhere near here and it will take them a month to pull a wire here before they can start. So we wait more. Week before last the boss calls Comcast to ask where our line is. Turns out they've lost our LOA and need us to re-send it. We do. They schedule another tech and give us an install date a week later (end of last week). We wait for the tech, but he never shows. So we call Comcast to ask where the tech is. He closed the ticket without showing up, saying it would take them another 3 months to get service here.
We haven't decided if we're going to wait more or just cancel the contract and eat whatever penalty is involved. I get the feeling they want us to cancel so they don't have to build out. I really can't see this ending well for us.
This is an example of what is really wrong. The install tech usually does a good job (there are exceptions, of course), but then the outside plant people drop the ball.
I appreciate it when a repair or install tech does whatever is needed to get the service up and running. What I don't appreciate is when the outside plant people don't bury the cable or don't fix the pedestal or whatever other thing is needed to keep problems from happening again and again and again.
