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Broadband ISP Betrayal Forces Homeowner To Sell New House

Posted by Soulskill on from the let-me-transfer-you-to-our-customer-disservice-center dept.

New submitter knightsirius writes: A Washington homeowner is having to sell his new house after being refused internet service from Comcast and CenturyLink despite receiving confirmation from both that the location was able to receive broadband service. The whole process took months and involved false assurances and bureaucratic convolutions. The national broadband map database frequently cited by Comcast as proof of sufficient competition lists 10 options at his location, including a gigabit municipal fiber network, but he cannot subscribe to it due to Washington state direct sale restrictions.

15 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Easy Solution by TheReaperD · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quick and effective solution to this problem. Pass a law that if a service provider says that they offer service to an address they must do so by law. No fines, they have to install service. If that means $30,000 in new cable to be laid, then so be it. The service providers will get their service maps in order really quickly and we'd have accurate coverage numbers for the country.

    --
    "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
    1. Re:Easy Solution by CastrTroy · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I guess it depends on what the fine is for not complying. For your above scenario to make sense, the fine itself would have to be more than the cost of installing the line. Otherwise, they would just pay the fine and forget about it. Also, there would need to be timelines for how long they can take to get the service working. If you have to live in the house a year without good internet before they get the service up and running then the law isn't very helpful. Also, what happens if you move in in December and they can't install the lines until March when the ground has thawed? Also, there's no law saying how much they are allowed to charge you, and they often don't charge the same fees for everybody. Once they've installed your lines, you're basically a slave to paying that provider's rates. If they want to jack up the rate 6 months down the road to recoup costs, there isn't much you can do about it, other than try to get some other provider to put in lines as well.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:Easy Solution by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He specifically said no fines, that they have to provide the service as the fine.

      And if they don't?

    3. Re:Easy Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fines don't work.
      Just revoke the companies existence if they refuse.

    4. Re:Easy Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He specifically said no fines, that they have to provide the service as the fine.

      And if they don't?

      Service is supplied by municipal agency at their expense.

    5. Re:Easy Solution by omnichad · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm just waiting for a "free market" troll to come in here and say that this is self-regulating. Just don't buy service from them, they'll say, and the market will sort it out..somehow. And...I really don't know how that argument will make any sense.

    6. Re:Easy Solution by Cassini2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Some markets naturally favor monopolies. Telecommunications is a good example. 23 years after the breakup of AT&T, the phone system, internet and cable systems in the US are back to being monopolies in many areas. The lucky areas have two or three near-monopolistic competitors, and these competitors behave suspiciously like cartels.

      Economics 101: Free markets only work under specific conditions. In this case, a free market requires low barriers to entry. Telecommunications has huge capital cost expenses that decline with the number of customers served. Thus, a monopoly that actively excludes competitors can maximize profits. If new entrants enter the marketplace, the monopoly can cut prices sufficiently that they can always bankrupt the new entrant, and continue to make a profit.

      This is also why states have laws blocking municipalities from offering Internet. Once a municipality builds the infrastructure, the resulting system is almost guaranteed to be profitable. As such, the big telcos hire lobbyists to pass laws to prevent construction of such systems, as they will be long-term competitors against the big telcos.

    7. Re:Easy Solution by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He specifically said no fines, that they have to provide the service as the fine.

      And if they don't?

      Fine them enough to bring in that line from the telco, installation and service. If that means they're paying for a fiber pull so you can get a fractional T3, so be it. It makes it a simple cost decision. I'm tired of blatantly fraudulent coverage maps, too.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Easy Solution by Solandri · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pass a law that if a service provider says that they offer service to an address they must do so by law. No fines, they have to install service. If that means $30,000 in new cable to be laid, then so be it. The service providers will get their service maps in order really quickly and we'd have accurate coverage numbers for the country. .The service providers will get their service maps in order really quickly and we'd have accurate coverage numbers for the country.

      This is the problem with people who typically see regulation as the solution to everything - they assume the best possible outcome for themselves. When in fact the best possible outcome for the company targeted by the regulations is what will really happen.

      If your proposal were implemented, the best possible outcome for the company is that they simply discontinue providing coverage maps for the country, and require you to call in. You will verbally be given a quote with a disclaimer that quoting a price does not constitute a guarantee that your address is within their service area. And if you need that guarantee, you will need to subscribe for a year and put down a deposit so they can send someone out there to survey the location. If it turns out they can't provide service, they'll refund your deposit. But if they can service you, you're committed to the year's subscription (thus neatly preventing you from finding if another ISP also covers you).

      How do I know? Because I just went through this trying to get Time-Warner cable internet at the commercial building I manage.

  2. I want to be away from people but have everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As annoying as the experience must have been, it still reduces to the home owner wanting a house away from civilization, but still requiring the products of civilization.

    Cities and towns have perks because city and town living is more efficient.

    If you want to live in the middle of nowhere, be prepared to make sacrifices.

  3. Choice? by khr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Shouldn't the headline be more like "Homeowner Chooses To Sell New House after Broadband ISP Betrayal".

    1. Re:Choice? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If he can't get broadband, he can't do his job. If he can't do his job, he (probably) can't make his mortgage payments. If he can't make his mortgage payments, he can't live in the house.

      So there's quite possibly not much choice about it.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:Choice? by Idarubicin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If he can't get broadband, he can't do his job. If he can't do his job, he (probably) can't make his mortgage payments. If he can't make his mortgage payments, he can't live in the house.

      Except that he can get broadband; he just can't get it quite a cheap as he wanted. Either this story or yesterday's mentions that he was paying $5 a GB for cellular data (3G?), and running up about 30 GB a month in usage. So, $150 per month. The hookup he wanted would have probably cost, what, $40 or $50 a month? If he's living so close to the edge that an extra hundred a month puts him on the street, then he couldn't really afford to live in that house anyway. (Some of us are out of pocket more than a hundred a month for a bus pass to get to work. We suck it up; it's a cost of doing business and living where we choose.)

      Of course, this guy also claims to have offered to pay "a good chunk of the cost" of installing the cable to his house, which would have run into the tens of thousands of dollars. If he was willing to splash out for that, then he could have afforded to pay even utterly ungodly cellular data rates for years. Bluntly, the only plausible explanation is that there's more going on here than meets the eye--the financial and technical case don't credibly add up to being "forced" to sell his house. Either he's got additional reasons that he wants/needs to move that he isn't sharing, or he just really craved some attention.

      --
      ~Idarubicin
  4. welcome to home buying 101 by alen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Always verify everything yourself and don't trust anyone.

    Pay for the previous owner's internet for a month or two just to make sure you can have it in the home. Ask for utility bills

    A lot of sellers will try to hide major problems like mold and previous flooding which is why you need a good inspector. And don't trust the realtor

    1. Re:welcome to home buying 101 by ledow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More - don't buy an entire house on the expectation of a company delivering a product.

      Because selling an entire house just because you couldn't get Internet you were promised some dumbness of inordinate magnitude.

      Did they not bother to ask neighbours first? If those neighbours have Internet, can't they piggyback on the wifi or put a microwave connection across at worse?

      All I take from the article (twice now!) is "tech guy still trusts in suppliers' promises".

      If it's that important you'd sell the house, you didn't do your homework beforehand. If it's REALLY that important, you'd probably consider leased lines, satellite and other more expensive methods.

      Hell, just as a bog-standard geek the first thing I did in my house was check the phone lines, check 3G connectivity (now 4G but that wasn't around at the time), and look out in the street for the CATV manholes that UK cable operators dig lines to your house from. The only thing I didn't bother to do was properly check wifi signal propagation because I could already see half-a-dozen of the neighbour's wifi networks from upstairs. And that's in the suburbs. Stick me out somewhere in the sticks and you bet I'd be checking stuff on anything other than supplier's promises.