Utility shenanigans

[MikeD74T]

I posted this to see where else in the country this was happening to the extent its happening here.

On the NH seacoast, i.e. Hampton Beach, this has been going on for at least 30 years that I'm aware of. Seasonal businesses that "demand" a lot of power for their 10 week season require substantial infrastructure. The demand only hits them disproportionately in the off season and then only if they use beyond a minimum amount kws for greater than a 15 minute period during the month. During spring startup & fall shutdown of several businesses I would open all the breakers and energize loads systematically to stay below the minimum and avoid the "demand surcharge". Since these businesses need the power in season the demand charge allowed them to have things like security systems, sump pumps, & a few lights in the off season rather than turning off all the power. Every owner cried like a baby if they went over the minimum without any income being produced. MikeD74T

 

[dave1949]

"Oh, its not us, we are dictated by the state to charge this amount"

You do live in the US don't you. To my knowledge the Federal Governement nor State Governments tell a business how much to charge for a product or service. They regulate some service to prevent such charges as you describe. I remember years ago when we had good telephone service from AT&T. AT&T was regulated. Everyone got to hollering as loud as they could, DE-REGULATE". An executive with AT&T made the statement well there goes good cheap and affordable telephone service and his comments in my opinion have become true. The purchasing public is being ripped every day by our good - good business people.

It's complicated and I don't think all the blame goes either way. For residential electric and land-line phone service rates, those are regulated by a state's Public Utility Commission I believe. I am not sure if that applies to commercial accounts.

Phone service was very simple under the Ma Bell system and Bell Labs certainly cranked out some great technology over the years. On the other hand, the explosion in the past 20 years of user level communication technology may not have been so easy or affordable under a Ma Bell monopoly.

Some of the same trade-offs apply to the airlines pre and post de-regulation.
Dave.

 

[Ken45101]

Phone service was very simple under the Ma Bell system and Bell Labs certainly cranked out some great technology over the years.

Yes...and Ma Bell told us that 300 baud hardwired modems was all we needed and all they would allow. And you could only add Ma Bell extensions to your home phone.

Bell was far from perfect.

Ken

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I've only seen it here on commercial, not on residential.

 

[dave1949]

Yes...and Ma Bell told us that 300 baud hardwired modems was all we needed and all they would allow. And you could only add Ma Bell extensions to your home phone.

Bell was far from perfect.

Ken

How fast does your teletype run? I know Bell was not perfect, which I noted in the sentence you did not include. It may have been the right medicine, historically, to get telecom off the ground. Can you imagine trying to achieve national communications with dozens/hundreds of providers using incompatible technology?
Dave.

 

[Ken45101]

How fast does your teletype run? I know Bell was not perfect, which I noted in the sentence you did not include. It may have been the right medicine, historically, to get telecom off the ground. Can you imagine trying to achieve national communications with dozens/hundreds of providers using incompatible technology?
Dave.

I was wrong with my numbers, it's been about 40 years now since the Bell stranglehold was broken.

Bell modems limited us to 150 baud (Teletype was 110 baud). To get past the Bell 150 baud modems, we had to use acoustic couplers which let us get all the up to 300 baud! Bell, with their monopoly, wanted to keep us at 150 baud. (For comparison, today's landline modems can reach 56,000 baud).

Ken

 

[dave1949]

I was wrong with my numbers, it's been about 40 years now since the Bell stranglehold was broken.

Bell modems limited us to 150 baud (Teletype was 110 baud). To get past the Bell 150 baud modems, we had to use acoustic couplers which let us get all the up to 300 baud! Bell, with their monopoly, wanted to keep us at 150 baud. (For comparison, today's landline modems can reach 56,000 baud).

Ken

What used to get me about AT&T, was they would never admit it when they had a line problem. So our customers would look at us like - can't you fix your equipment? After enough complaining, things would start working magically - but they would never admit to fixing their problems. Very frustrating knowing you are wasting your time and getting the blame for AT&T.
Dave.

 

[ultrarunner]

What used to get me about AT&T, was they would never admit it when they had a line problem. So our customers would look at us like - can't you fix your equipment? After enough complaining, things would start working magically - but they would never admit to fixing their problems. Very frustrating knowing you are wasting your time and getting the blame for AT&T.
Dave.

Sooo true!

I had on going problems for years and my 300 baud modem would drop out at times... also static.

AT&T would do nothing...

I signed-up when they offered DSL to my area and what a blessing... It took over a week before they gave up and ran a new line from several blocks away... the supervisor was amazed I had phone service with what I had... I told him that I could tell him lots of stories if he had the time!

 

[Taylortractornut]

We have TVA supplied power and dont have the peak hour usage rates. Usually the house is 50 to 60 per months in the winter and the shop[ runs about 20 to 45. Our house meter is a remote read deal and the shop is a manual read one. My biggest problem was I hadnt been to the shop for a whole month I had pulled the main because I had been getting higher bills like a 100 bucks for one month and I hadnt been in the shop for an hour that month. The next month rolled around 85 bucks. I had a meeting then. The meter reader that make 21 dollars an hour had been estimating the meter. The lead man came out and veiwed my meter with the logged hours to my statement and they really adjusted it and gave me a small break on it.

year before last the same power company had a problem with the remote read meters to. My wifes grandmother lived in a new trailer with all gas apliances and heat. she had AC in the living room which she lived there since her husband passed away. She called my wife crying had a 600 dollar power bill. She was about to pay it when we went to the Power company with the problem they immediatkley fixed it. THere was several houses in that area that even had 750.00 bills.

 

[dave1949]

My wifes grandmother lived in a new trailer with all gas apliances and heat. she had AC in the living room which she lived there since her husband passed away. She called my wife crying had a 600 dollar power bill. She was about to pay it when we went to the Power company with the problem they immediatkley fixed it. THere was several houses in that area that even had 750.00 bills.

What is so sad about that is it takes very little programming effort for a billing program to kick out a list of probable exceptions for human follow-up. It is what any reasonable person would do if they were doing manual billing and saw a bill that was 5 to 6 times higher than normal. We don't really use the power of computing very smartly sometimes.
Dave.

 

[ultrarunner]

Had the same problem with remote read... had everything turned off and got a bill for $450...

Next month it was corrected... I was working out of the country at the time.

So how is it possible to get the wrong reading with remote read? Isn't this the super accurate smart meter thing?

 

[Taylortractornut]

My problem was really with the guy that was too lazy to walk 50 feet to the shop meter. I have 3 phase in my shop. Our PC doesnt put remote meters on 3phase right now. The man knew he was guestimating. He still wont look at me if Im here during a reading claims I almost got him fired. I tell him he almost got him fired as his sheets are marked whats remote whats not. He also claimed that I shouldnt have worried about 40 to 70 bucks extra I was paying per month.

 

[Ken]

The account used 19 kwh. You want me to be ok with being charged $346 for this? Our alledged kwh cost is about 14 cents. So in effect, my actual usage cost came to $2.66. Fees added another $37. Demand came to over $300 on an account that has never exceeded 1800kwh per month and this only happens for 2 months. The rest of the time. The account uses form 0 to 40 kwh. Why should anyone be charged on that one off, 15 minute time frame as opposed to a cost profile based on a longer assessment so it can go down in a more reasonable manner. It establishes in 15 minutes but takes almost 6 months to get down to half that cost. Costs born for overhead is one thing, but this feels like outright abusive charging as a result of a basic monopolistic mindset. Read my original post. Did I for one second question the feasibility of such a charge type? I didn't post this to get a lecture on business economics. I posted this to see where else in the country this was happening to the extent its happening here.

30 years ago worked for a gas transmission company. And the problem was how to supply a area that didn't want a compressor station any where near it's location. also didn't want a pipe line to the area. pumping station was to noisy and it stinks. the pipe line distroys the land where it is put and scenic beauty was disturbed. Also no oil refiner's they also stank. then switched to a elec. power company the same area did not want any power lines overhead and none buried same reason as gas lines. Then complained at the price of there utilities. Today this same area's doesn't want off shore wind mill power destroys the beauty of the ocean view. Wonder why the cost of utilities is high.
ken

 

[dmccarty]

There are a couple of local companies hiring scads of people for "Smart Grid" projects. The only thing I can see that is smart about it is that the meters will be metering in real time, like now but sending the information back to a central point.

They make it sounds like something I care about and I really don't except for two things. One it sounds like the power company will be able to start billing residential customers at peak rates. Oh, they will be good enough to "contact" me somehow to tell me to lower my consumption during those peaks. :confused2:

The other issue with the "smart grid" is security. And how good will their security be? It sounds like the company and remotely turn off the meter if they choose. Or if someone else hacks into their system and chooses. And their is the risk of the power consumption reading from the meter being "adjusted" maliciously.

Still trying to figure out how a smart meter is smart for me. I see nothing but badness.

Phones. I remember the phone monopoly. Deregulation of the phones and airlines has allowed huge savings for consumers. You had to RENT a phone from Ma at $5 a month. A phone that you had paid for in a year. I worked at Radio Shack when people could finally buy their own phones and people where flooding the store getting their own equipment so they could save money.

Now I was not paying the phone bill back then but my cell phone, land line phone, and DSL service is less than what I was paying for simple long distance and land line 20 years ago. Deregulation and competition has driven down prices and increase function.

If Ma was still a monopoly I really wonder if we would have cell phones much less smart phones.

Later,
Dan

 

[dave1949]

Now I was not paying the phone bill back then but my cell phone, land line phone, and DSL service is less than what I was paying for simple long distance and land line 20 years ago. Deregulation and competition has driven down prices and increase function.

If Ma was still a monopoly I really wonder if we would have cell phones much less smart phones.

Later,
Dan

There isn't much incentive for risk taking and innovation in a monopoly. I doubt we would have wonder phones without breaking up AT&T and allowing third party line access as a starting point for that process. Yep, I remember when it was finally legal to own your phone.

The airlines have been deregulated, but there is still something wrong with that industry. It could be that by their very nature, airport numbers and capacities limit true competition. The airlines are able to reduce service levels across the board from carrier to carrier with very little punishment by the market. The latest customer-friendly charge I read about is you now pay extra to sit in an exit row seat and enjoy actual leg room.
Dave.

 

[robb01]

Ive had some crazy experiences too, but they usually get it cleared up quickly

 

[tallyho8]

Deregulation has also allowed people to get less expensive, inferior equipment. We had a black dial desk phone for 20 years with no problems. Most of our cell phones break in a couple of years.

Even today with all our modern technology, two people talking on cell phones do not have as crisp and clear sound as we had on our old phone.

Sure, there are exceptions, but when someone phones me on my landline and i get a lot of static and they are hard to understand, I know immediately that they are on a cellphone.

 

[forgeblast]

I was getting a bill that was estimated but i told them i wanted someone to come out and check our meter since we were putting in led's and insulation and doors etc. They still some out, i would rather have the exact number then an estimate.

 

[dmccarty]

The airlines have been deregulated, but there is still something wrong with that industry. It could be that by their very nature, airport numbers and capacities limit true competition. The airlines are able to reduce service levels across the board from carrier to carrier with very little punishment by the market. The latest customer-friendly charge I read about is you now pay extra to sit in an exit row seat and enjoy actual leg room.
Dave.

People get what they pay for. Plane fares used to be very expensive. Now they are dirt cheap. I just heard of flights to NYC for under $75. I can't drive to NYC for $75.

You want a full dinner/lunch/breakfast then you have to pay for it. If you want the cheapest fare to get you from A to B with a bag of chips you pay less.

If you want more leg room pay for first class.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Deregulation has also allowed people to get less expensive, inferior equipment. We had a black dial desk phone for 20 years with no problems. Most of our cell phones break in a couple of years.

Even today with all our modern technology, two people talking on cell phones do not have as crisp and clear sound as we had on our old phone.

Sure, there are exceptions, but when someone phones me on my landline and i get a lot of static and they are hard to understand, I know immediately that they are on a cellphone.

It is called choice. People decided to buy a cheap phone. Their choice compared to paying $5 a month year after year after year for a phone that did not cost $100.

When I worked at Radio Shack we had cheap POS phones for $19.95 and really good stuff that was about $75. Many people would buy the $20 phone because it was a $20 phone. Their choice. After working at the store for a while I noticed that the $20 phone would almost certainly fail. And it would fail just after 90 days were up. We had a shelf full of the things going to and from service. I would tell people to NOT buy the phone. That chances are it would break after the warranty was up and it was not worth paying.

They still would buy the $20 one.

The land line phone we have was certainly not expensive and I have had it for over 20 years. Ma would have charged me $1,200 for the that phone over the years. Thank you, no.

Our cell phones work fine. They usually age out technically though my wife has broken one or two. But if she drops it on a concrete floor a couple of times I can't blame the phone. Cell connection quality is excellent and so far this month I am over 1100 minutes. Our cell quality is better than the land line because of the DSL.

Taking away the phone monopoly was a great.

Later,
Dan