My Telephone providers are idiots

[paulharvey]

They need something like the rural electrification act but for internet.

The last thing we need is the government fixing it... I think the satellite Internet might force some changes over time. I would seriously look at Dish data and Dish TV combo if it wasn't for the data limits. I don't know how much data I use in a month, and would hate to sign up for 2 year contract only to find out I spend more. I'm not screaming for super fast; just fairly good speed and Reliability. I would be perfectly happy with 500 kb/second if they could actually deliver it all the time. I have no need to download an entire HD movie in 30 seconds.

I can't imagine what the average person needs with 15 megs/second; business I can see.

 

[k0ua]

I am not trying to defend the telephone or cable companies here, but there are realities to bringing service to a subscriber. One reality is that it costs a tremendous amount of money to build out service to a subscriber, often money that will NEVER be recovered unless there are enough subscribers that maintain service over a period of many years. Keep in mind telco subscribers are busy canceling their services by the thousands every day. Many of us brag about how we are "dropping the phone company" every day. The phone companies are in a death spiral as it relates to universal service to rural subscribers.

What makes those of us that live in rural areas think we are "owed" some kind of service anyway? We have never payed our way. The only way telco's could survive and provide for rural service is by having the urban services be profitable to subsidize the rural services. With the proliferation of mobile phones the urban dwellers have dropped their land line services like flies on an frosty October morning. The death spiral is that as the service becomes worse more and more subscribers will leave.

As for having "fiber nearby" and why can't I get on the fiber?. Having a fiber optic trunk cable running by you door means NOTHING. All the fibers in the cable are likely in use with high speed DWDM circuits and ther is NOTHING there for ANY subscriber. This is not like a water or gas pipe, you cannot Just "tap in" and get some service. A DWDM terminal to be built could easily cost a million dollars and I am sure you as a single subscriber would be willing to foot the bill for that construction right?

No, we all want good service, but we are going to get worse and worse service from here on out from telco's as they continue to shift their focus from servicing individual subscribers to servicing the cell phone towers, and long haul point to point circuits.

Guys, things are not like they used to be 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. Hopefully the cell phone providers will get more towers built (at least a million dollars per tower) and provide data and voice plans for rural users, or satellite technology will get better, or perhaps cable operators will build out a bit further to get to some of us ( I am fortunate to have high speed cable service) but don't expect too much from your local telco going forward, as they are struggling to survive and shifting focus into services and opportunity's that will allow them to survive.

Again I am not apologizing for any telco, and am no longer associated with any of them, but having a telco background I do understand some of the issues.

 

[two_bit_score]

James, that was spot on. It's frustrating not to have all the connectivity we want while living in rural areas away from everyone else who bothers us. :thumbsup:

 

[newbury]

I can't imagine what the average person needs with 15 megs/second; business I can see.

To look at videos and pictures on TBN!!

The problem is that like many utilities we have granted corporations monopolies to divide up the customer base as they see fit. And they see fit to make a maximum profit like any business without ethics.

We used to have 4 phones on our ancient Verizon cell phone plan, with unlimited data "grandfathered" in. I got peeved at the bill because after taxes and everything I was paying about $30/month just for a very basic cellphone use for myself, while the kids (26 and 29) used a lot of data and texting. So about 2 years ago I said to heck with it and bought a Best Buy special with $30 of minutes for $30. Every 3 months I add another $30, and whatever is remaining rolls over. So in 2 years I've spent about $240 (w/ $70 left on the phone), versus $720.

And just recently the "unlimited data grandfather" died and SWMBO is starting to doubt the value of sticking with the ever increasing Verizon plan.

I get po'ed when I hear the ads for "bundles" for $100/month. Especially since at my house I can only get 2 TV stations on cable. But it's a monopoly and good for business..

 

[MNBobcat]

That's why we need the equivalent of the REA but for internet. Without the REA, you wouldn't have electricity right now because those providing the electricity would merely have ran power to the densely populated areas and left everyone else in the dark (pun intended)

It should be law that if you're going to provide a utility type service within a county, that you provide it to everyone in the county. Its the cost of doing business. We have several cable providers in our state and its broken up usually by a geographical region which is why I say by county.

 

[MNBobcat]

I get po'ed when I hear the ads for "bundles" for $100/month. Especially since at my house I can only get 2 TV stations on cable. But it's a monopoly and good for business..

A piece of advice -- don't ever, ever bundle. The reason is this, let's say you pay for your directtv by paying your telephone company. And then you have a problem with your bill. Directtv will tell you that you need to talk to your phone company and the phone company will tell you that you need to talk to directv. I know people who have had this happen and the whole deal ends up being a nightmare. Its one of those things where its all good until you have a problem and then its really, really bad. I recommend not bundling and just deal with each company individually.

 

[Winmac]

Same here utility co. Are only interested in collecting money not providing service.

My bro built a new home had a home and business line installed, line crackles and drops calls, a year later no improvement he canceled the home number and has is business calls forwarded to his cell.

So between our places there is a pole washed down in the river, it's got the phone line drug almost down to the ground, I called and even spoke to a crew that were on a service call about it. Nope nothing ever done.

 

[Whitnel]

When we built our new house I had two 1" conduits installed with the underground electric service. Told the phone installer where the conduits were and to put his line it is. It only had a small pull sting in it, they shoudl have pulled in a larger string (mule tape, etc) and pulled in their line. I got home, one of the conduits was broke and the string laying in the yard. Apparently the guy did not know how to pull wire and just left the line laying on the ground.

A week later a pull up to see a guy with a vibratory blade to burry the line. Problem is we have lots of rock in the area. He had made it maybe 30' and some of the line was 1" deep. Went over and told the guy I had conduits burried just for them to use, and that I had told everyone that when I set up the service. Well he had some common sense and got a new line put in the conduit. The line that was hooked up to the house was still laying on the ground. It took another week or more and several calls to get the service switched to the proper line.

Just one headache of many building the house.

 

[KubotainNH]

For my mom I've looked at cell type boxes from ATT, you connect your normal phone to it. The one mentioned above is pretty neat seeing it has battery backup and you can get an antenna for it. I hate their website though, always hard to figure out the cost. Set Your Location

/Edit/ Sorry, i didn't see more pages until after I posted. BTW, I have Vonage and it runs over my high speed fiber line. Sounds great, I think the taxes on it cost almost as much as the service. Once you have high speed data it becomes normal and you don't want to go back to slow stuff. File downloads are where you really notice the speed.

 

[JDgreen227]

James, that was spot on. It's frustrating not to have all the connectivity we want while living in rural areas away from everyone else who bothers us. :thumbsup:

My GF and I have cell phones that barely get one bar of coverage, although there is 4 bars of 4G coverage only 3 miles away, and which are pretty much dependent upon the crappy router furnished by Verizon as part of my obscenely overpriced $85 a month pi** poor DSL....she and I pay $80 a month each for cell service and another $85 goes to a landline for slow DSL....and what do we get for a combined $250 a month....PURE CRAP !!!!! We both have Ipads and a laptop, and the devices are so slow it makes me furious. SO EXACTLY WHAT DOES THE LANDLINE COMPANY TELL US??? TOO BAD, BUT SO WHAT???? My feelings are, if they can give 15 mbps service for customers 3 miles away, there is NO EXCUSE....NONE....for not delivering the same here. It amazes me that with all the technology available today, landline companies cannot improve service. And don't anybody give me this crap that they need to invest big bucks to upgrade....they are making HUGE MONEY off consumers who get bare minimum service. The providers are simply selfish and greedy. I don't give a flying flick how much it costs you to upgrade service...you have been ripping off your customers for decades.....!!!!! If you can deliver 15 mbps for customers 3 miles away, CHARGE THEM 10X what I pay...and use that $$$ to upgrade service for the customers you are screwing over !!!!