I pulled around the corner yesterday evening on the way home and, POW!
This is the fabled equipment pad I made reference to in my htpc post. Equipment! There’s a third set of conduit sticking up through the concrete awaiting treatment, and I have no idea what this means in the continuum of bringing internets to our house but I doubt it’s bad.
In semi-related news, Google held a contest recently to award ridiculously fast internet to a limited number of folks. You may remember Topeka, Kansas temporarily renaming itself Google in a bid for the win. The mayor also jumped into a freezing lake. Maybe that was another town. Google renamed itself Topeka for a day as an April fools joke. Oh, such hilarity!
Topeka appears to have a wealth of internet providers already. It’d be nice if Google could focus on the currently large percentage of Americans that have none. A Pew study done at the end of last year found that 60% of American adults use broadband at home, which means that 40%, or nearly half, don’t. You know, for whatever reason. They don’t say exactly in this report, but in a 2008 report they found that 24% of households, not adults, simply have no choice because the service doesn’t exist. That seems like a really small percentage but it’s a quarter of the houses in the country. It’s possible that this particular stat has decreased since 2008 but the 40% of adults number is still pretty high and relatively current.
I nominated my town for that Google thing based simply on these merits but I didn’t expect anything. Google isn’t doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. It’s for publicity and increasing traffic to their site. More views mean more ad dollars. I get it, my town doesn’t fit the model. It’s just another one of those indications that even in the land of plenty there are people all over going without all kinds of stuff. Life’s not fair, blah blah blah.
Anyway, don’t feel sorry for us. It’s only internet after all. It’s not like it’s food or shelter, and we’ll be hooked up sooner than later. Man, how terrible would this be if this wasn’t for internet though?
23 responses to “nearly there”
Third piece of kit was installed today!
The race continues . . . our second install appointment is June 11th. We’ll see if they can find another excuse.
Woah, we might actually have a chance. Your guys do know they need poles AND wires to get to your house, right?
At your suggestion, I have confirmed with Central Maine Power that the new poles are available and with Time Warner that they will string wire down the road prior to our 6/11 installation . . . (not a bad idea to check back with TW in a week to see if they are ready).
I’m still in the game !
Helping them do their job is cheating. Maybe I’ll leave some brownies down at the equipment pad if you’re going to engage in this kind of shenanigans.
I’m in it to win ! ! !
( . . . there are no rules.)
Again, Time Warner attempted to install internet and cable today. Unfortunately, the pole monkies didn’t notice our electrical service is under the “road.” Now, Time Warner has to dig a trench before we are hooked.
I’m still in the game.
The trench could take a while . . . . (heck, the phone call took 45 minutes) . . . like going under the pavement and all that traffic can be a problem.
At least you have someone you can call to hustle. When I called our telco in November they wouldn’t tell me anything.
There’s no reason to think the electric company put some extra conduit for cable or phone when they dug a trench the first time. It’s not their service. Also, it would have been wildly effective. Does your telephone go under the road as well? Maybe they can piggy back in that tube?
I make a habit of keeping my eyes on the lines when I come home in the evenings and I haven’t seen a lot of progress in a week or so. A magic 8 ball would have a better shot predicting our fate at this point.
We called Time Warner for the third time this week (it’s Wednesday, after all) following Friday’s disappointment. Bill is the third supervisor in as many calls (referred by as many incompetent operators). At least he has offered his direct line. After making some inquiries it seems that the conduit is our responsibility ( $ ). A contract will be coming for me to sign and work will commence in four to six weeks. Then a third appointment will be scheduled to “install” service.
I’m un-impressed that these guys are the telecommunication professionals who couldn’t figure out that we were on the “wrong” side of the road last month when they came out . . . or in December when the work was scoped.
Our guests in June and July will not be impressed either.
I’m more and more getting the impression that our corporations are not only getting too big to fail, but too big to operate. The dudes who came out to your house the first time aren’t talking to the dudes who came out the second time, who aren’t talking to the dudes who came out the third time, who aren’t talking to the first phone operator you spoke with, who isn’t talking with the second operator, who isn’t talking with the third operator.
Computers are supposed to be tracking this stuff so everyone can communicate and stay on the same page, but if the guys aren’t actually using it or they don’t have the tools in the first place, then you’re just bobbing around in the water.
I can’t get the 6 other people in this office to share information with me effectively. Now you’ve got 1000’s roaming around in trucks, staring at poles and wires, not taking responsibility. I have no idea how you guys track rail cars across the country. I have no idea how anything gets done these days. Secretly, I think it doesn’t.
In other news, I saw guys in communications trucks staring at some equipment down by the river this morning. Literally staring. So they’re back on the case!
We’re through the first two rentals without Time Warner and a few concessions.
I called Time Warner (two weeks later) and spoke at Bill to find out where we are. He confirmed the trench/conduit on July 24th and the third installation by August 7th (no, I can’t make an appointment). All, we’ve covered previously . . . and we’ve paid a month in advance.
He mentions the $2 a foot, like it’s my turn. I haven’t seen the contract he wants back. “Really?” He’ll look into it.
. . . . these are the professionals ! (I reminded him we could have a dish in three days.)
&%$#@&^%$# ! ! ! ! !
The saga continues . . . . Time Warner called to schedule our REAL installation for the morning of Friday, August 6th. The trench/conduit should be done by then. (They had refunded my prepayment after the last go-round so I had to re-open the account again.) The trench/conduit will be performed at no cost.
Place your bets . . . .
I called Fairpoint the other day and the woman told me to go home and get my shine box. But the joke’s on her. I talked directly to the men on the scene this morning and they said late summer. And we’ll top out at 30 megabit service if we so choose, which means I will be THE Internet.
It’s like progressing from the dawn of time to now, immediately.
GAME OVER !
Finally a competent technician . . . got cable TV and internet installed today 🙂
Blast. 🙁
Oh! That’s right, you are still playing the game. ENJOY ! ! !
Eliot says the next door neighbor now has Time Warner cable and internet. (Plans to push the dish into the lake.)
How’s progress there ?
I’m so glad you guys resisted satellite, it’s the desperate option. I’ve shunned it for 5 years, preferring no service at all over their draconian bandwidth caps and throttling and inability to provide service when it does things like rain. I can do email with dial-up. The real internet has this stuff we call video and music and games, and that requires bandwidth and I won’t settle for less, ya hear?!
The line tech said ‘3 months’ and that was in early July. It’s now three months and I haven’t seen a Fairpoint truck around for a while, but I also haven’t seen the fabled notice on my door either. I’ve begun expecting to see it when I come up from work, the same way I began to expect equipment on the pad back in May when I originally made this post. A pad that was installed this time last year.
So I just called Fairpoint and naturally they have no idea, but she told me to go to another website to log my interest in case the line tech somehow ‘forgot’ about us and went somewhere else. Once I entered my info, a map popped up showing me where I live. And that place is 6-7 miles away in another town at the other end of our road, in the middle of nowhere. It’s the problem anyone would have using Mapquest or Google to locate our home.
So I called them back and said, if you think I live in the middle of nowhere, you’ll never tell me I have service because that area will never be serviced. And she said, we do everything based on your physical address. And I said, I just told your system what my physical address is and it thinks I live in the middle of nowhere, woman! She repeated herself and I sighed and gave up. I guess I’ll have to wait until there’s a notice on my door.
I’ve teased myself with the idea that I’ll sign up with the local fiber company by Thanksgiving but the reality is that Fairpoint is offering more than double the speed for $15 less per month. It would be insane to cave at the last moment. So I’m committed to waiting it out.
Speaking of insane, they were talking about internet when we moved in 5 years ago. That pad with the equipment is about a year old, and we still have nothing. You and your 6 month wait. Pshaw!
I admire your commitment. (Any 4 day weekend you can get internet and cable at Sebago.)
It’s more stubbornness. 🙂
Aside from the fly by on our anniversary weekend, I won’t be able to make any trips out there till December. We’ve either got too much going on between now and T-giving, or specifically nothing going on so we can stay local and relax. It’s a tough life.
Waiting for the final post . . . . . tick . . . . tick . . . . tick . . . .
http://www.beamychron.com/live/?p=1819