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Comcast's Incompetence, Lack of Broadband May Force Developer To Sell Home
BUL2294 writes Consumerist has an article about a homeowner in Kitsap County, Washington who is unable to get broadband service. Due to inaccurate broadband availability websites, Comcast's corporate incompetence, CenturyLink's refusal to add new customers in his area, and Washington state's restrictions on municipal broadband, the owner may be left with no option but to sell his house 2 months after he bought it, since he works from home as a software developer. To add insult to injury, BroadbandMaps.gov says he has 10 broadband options in his zip code, some of which are not applicable to his address, have exorbitant costs (e.g. wireless), or are for municipal providers that are prevented from doing business with him by state law. Yet, Comcast insists in filings that "the broadband marketplace is more competitive than ever." As someone who had Comcast call to cancel on the day of my closing (two days before my scheduled install) because they didn't offer service to my house after all, I can sympathize.
Actually, as a Developer I completely trust Comcast Business. True broadband, excellent upstream rates, and great QoS and reliability. Outages are infrequent and dealt with rapidly, their customer service is actually knowledgeable and the turnaround time to get an install is under 48 hours (I had a tech out installing at my new rental the day after I signed up for service and hadn't even had a chance to move in yet. I know many other small businesses and startups that use Comcast business and who have the same positive experience. Comcast Cable however are an evil cabal of raging assholes that love nothing more than abusing their customers. But Comcast Business and Comcast Cable are two different divisions and run independently of each other.
This is patently false. Rush Limbaugh would never say that as he's previously said that we've already turned into the Soviet Union.
Running even a few miles of cable doesn't cost more than a couple thousand dollars for the cable itself. If it is a super rural area could could dig a shallow trench next to the road and run the cable yourself for miles. The trench wouldn't need to be more then six inches deep if its a gravel road. You just kick a little gravel over the cable.
If you wanted to go to the extra expense... which would be almost nothing... you could run the cable in a thin PVC pipe. Cost of a couple miles of PVC is again almost nothing. I looked this up not long ago. The prices are hilarious. You'd want to buy it wholesale. You don't want to pay the home depot price if you're running that much.
But again, for several miles of able you're looking at a couple thousand dollars. And the labor costs would also be nothing special since no one needs special training for something like that. You could either do it yourself, have some friends help you, or hire some high school kids to do it for a couple hundred bucks.
I have an uncle that lives in a really rural area. He asked the local ISP to run cable to his house and they said it would cost 300,000 dollars. That was for 2 miles of cable along a dirt road.
My uncle was a contractor before he retired. So he just ran the cable himself. The whole road is private. He got the signed permission of the other five people that use that road and did it himself.
Total cost was a couple thousand bucks.
ISPs are frequently unreasonable when it comes to running cable to just one guy. This is nothing new.
For legal reasons, the ISP didn't connect HIM to the internet, but the person that owned the property he ran the cable to. He paid that property owner... nothing I think because they didn't care. And the internet was connected their place and then linked into his cable which then ultimately went to his home.
The whole topic is an exercise in talking to idiots. Everyone is boxed into their little robotic responses and no one opens their fucking minds to alternatives.
The cable has to get run. It is not expensive. If people need to sign some sort of agreement then you knock on some doors with fresh baked cookies. Its not rocket science.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
How about if Comcast came out and shot the guy?
We called to shoot you but you were out. Please call 1-800-XFINISHYOU to reschedule.