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Broadband ISP Betrayal Forces Homeowner To Sell New House
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.
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." -
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.
When I bought my home, I was assured by AT&T that they provided Uverse up to 18mbit at my address, and the employee on the phone actually directed me to the National Broadband Map.
After I moved in, I ordered service, and what do you know? I can only get legacy DSL at 768k. I filed complaints with FCC and FTC over the false claims and false representation on the broadband map, only to receive "thanks but we don't care" letters from both agencies, along with a courtesy call from AT&T confirming that 768k was the highest speed I could get.
The county fiber network runs right past my house, but since AT&T was able to get a municipal network ban passed as state law in SC (fuck you very much for signing it, Nikki Haley, you steaming piece of shit), I can't connect to it (only people who have NO Internet options from a major ISP can connect to it, and since I can get 768k DSL, I can't connect to the county network).
Fuck you AT&T
Fuck you FCC
Fuck you FTC
Fuck you Nikki Haley
Fuck you South Carolina
Didn't we see this yesterday?
Yes we did
This is a repost.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
That should have been the headline.
Shouldn't the headline be more like "Homeowner Chooses To Sell New House after Broadband ISP Betrayal".
We live in a somewhat rural area. Fiber isn't even close, and DSL service (6mbit max) only became available a year or two ago. Cable internet through Charter has been available for over a decade though, and we've had Cable TV since the early 1990's. About 5 years ago, relatives next door finally caved and wanted cable. They are literally one house before us, and equal distance from the road. (100ft or so). Every time we called they said it was not available for their address. It took 6mo of fighting, and a call/complaint to the local cable/communication oversight committee, to get them to send a survey crew (A single guy), who immediately got out of the car, looked, said "The f**k, there's no problem here you can get it" who then went on about a rant about how their database is so messed up and inaccurate.
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
In Europe we have this thing called 3G and 4G which both brings you reliable wireless broadband without wires. Approx $30/month.
... and capped data allowances - often at very low limits
It's not just you. It does not read like an Onion article to me, either.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
only if you polish the ends too much. Then you cut off the connectors and reterminate, and hopefully polish it right this time.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It is one thing to blindly expect things to work out, but this person did their due diligence and made their decision based off the promise that the expected service was available. It is fair to want things that are promised to you after handing over massive amounts of money.
that would either get their attention or get them replaced with someone more competent.
kind of like a kid who murdered his parent asking the court for leniency because he's an orphan.
I'm having the same situation. AT&T swears up and down that they can give me U-verse service . . . until the tech gets there and finds out that the nearest box is miles away. They then tell me that they can probably get me DSL. But when I talk to the call center folks, they say they can't process a DSL order while the system says U-Verse is available. Don't worry, they say, as soon as the maps are updated, we can order your DSL. Almost a year later, the maps aren't updated. It's almost like they vigorously don't want my business.
I've had many incidents of this same situation with various telcos and cable companies over the years.
Specific to Comcast, they told me I could not get service at my house but yet came out 2 weeks later to disconnect service from the previous owner of the house.
Verizon with DSL, getting letters in the mail and calls to home to get DSL. I signed up and at least 5 times in two years. Every time they would send someone to my house and find out I could not actually get it. Another strange one with Verizon. I had a second line in my house that was active. It took me a few weeks to finally realize it though, That phone would never ring when the others did. When I called to inquire they knew nothing about it and refused to cancel it because it was not in my name. About 6 months later I got a bill to my house addressed to a different name. It was a bill for 8 months of service or it was going to be shut off. I did nothing and about 2 months later it was finally dead.
This one worked out to my advantage. Remember back in the 90's when long distance calls were expensive? They averaged 10-20 cents a minute? I used to get offers in the mail between ATT, MCI to possibly others to switch all the time. Many were giving checks that if you signed and deposited them, you agreed to switch long distance providers. I did that all the time but.. The old area I lived in on a military base was not capable of using other providers for some reason, my only choice was AT&T. I'd deposit the checks, get a welcome letter and still have AT&T. Even AT&T was sending me letters to switch back with a credit even though I technically never left them.
I moved into nice apartments in Westlake Village, California. Called Verizon, had them hook up DSL. It was fast and worked well... for 12 hours.
My service was shut off.
I called and they said "Service is not available in your area.
I told them I had service yesterday, and they confirmed that I did, but that it was a mistake, and service was not available.
We went around and around, I finally gave up after 2 hours on the phone, vowing to sign up with someone else. No other service available, and since I was at the bottom of a valley, EVEN SATELLITE was not available.
After a few more days of phone calls and escalations, I finally straight up asked them "Is the CO/RT full and you didn't realize it until you hooked me up?" they admitted that yes it was.
I made a deal with my neighbor, bought her network equipment and paid her phone bill every month just for letting me use her wifi.
THEN to add insult to injury, I got a contract cancellation fee bill from Verizon in the mail, because I terminated my contract for DSL before a year was up.
If the previous owners and/or their neighbors don't have service then assume you can't get it. Especially if you're livelihood depends on having broadband at home.
Exept the part where he verified service with two broadband providers before buying the house. Both lied then claimed they'd made an error. Error or lie, he relied on their information to his detriment. There's even a phrase for that in the law. Detrimental reliance.
I just went throught this crap last year when I was shopping for a house. I had a wonderful region picked out but had to scrap it completely because nobody down there could tell me what internet service was available. "That's the first question people aske these days." "So what's available at this location?" "No idea." They seemed to think that satellite and 3 meg DSL were acceptable options. I started doing my own research and quickly learned that most providers lie, lie, lie. Frontier was the worst. Every address but one came back as "25mbit fiber". Even the place that was 10 miles down a dirt road. The only one I trusted was the cable company but their footprint was tiny. If I didn't buy a place in town, I was SOL.
I ended up looking closer to The Big City and only requested viewings of places where the cable company assured me they provided service. And the first thing I looked for was the cable company's box on the side of the house with a fat coax line coming out of the ground. If the place didn't have existing service, I didn't bother going inside. Except for that really creepy house that was more of a dare than a serious look. Who puts the kitchen in the basement???
But getting back to the point, good internet service is as important as a good water supply. Without it, the property is useless for most people. I'd even look at a place without electric service before I'd look at a place with no internet. I could set up a solar/diesel/battery system for power but I can't build my own high speed, low latency internet service.