I just got the word from AT&T that they would not be able to install the U-Verse on my line. This was after they took the order and told me it would work. I questioned them on it since they would still be using the last 3000 feet of cable that is a mess of bad splices and pairs. I had a pretty good idea that they would be unable to install it. I have had problems with my DSL over the last year. By the way, 4 techs worked over
8 hours trying to get it up. I guess I'll just have to live with what I have until they get more people in the area that want U-verse and place another Hub a couple of thousand feet closer or we get the long promised rebuild. Cable is not an option.
-- The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, Inc., A Rot in Hell. Co.
***** Moderator's Note *****
If you can't get cable, how about satellite or WiMax? From what you've described, I get the impression that the best solution is "Anything But" Verizon DSL.
I can get cable, but the cable they use is also 30 years old. [They have] Fiber [available], but it is also over 3000 feet away, and [it's provided by] Charter, which is a pain to deal with.
We are served by at&t, not Verizon. The Verizon in the area is all FiOS, and is new build; being a retired GTE employee, if I lived in Verizon's service area, I could get Verizon for about 30% less then they charge non-employee subscribers. I have both at&t Wifi through the city, but get the higher speed and also have a MiFi from Sprint; satellite is slower even with the problems with DSL. I have been told that they are now monitoring the Network Router I'm on and if in fact there are a lot of large users on it they will either move some of them off or move me, that itself will clear the problem so I get at least 4500 Mh.
- - The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2009 I Kill Spammers, Inc., A Rot in Hell. Co.
3000 feet of copper that's required replacement for how many years now?
I had no idea that the VLAD (the alien landing platform) could be that far from the subscriber's premises. Considering how ubiquitous these boxes are in communities in which AT&T is selling U-verse, I figured the subscriber had to be within 1/4 mile or no more than 1500 feet.
It is a mini Wifi that connects to the Sprint 4G network: it can handle 7 computers. Verizon also has one, [which] requires a data plan, [and] it works pretty good. I bought it a few months ago; I was working on a Switch for Sprint and one of the techs had one. Since the company I work for is the primary contractor for them I got a pretty good deal: right now 4G is limited to a few large cities, [and] they plan on a nationwide roll out late next year. They have partners around the US and Canada.
The cable is from the 60's and early 70's and I'm a half mile from the nearest U-verse. I contacted the administrative offices and am waiting for an answer. I was told that they would install another Hub when more people in the area request U-verse, I told them that 9 people plus me want it, that did get their attention, but it takes 6 months to get one in place, they have to run at least a 1/4 mile of fiber and replace some of the copper, they also need the city permits. They are now looking at all the splices since they keep finding Bridge Taps which makes DSL suck.
I have Uverse over a 4200 foot loop from the VRAD (node) to the demark on 30 year old copper. The copper is mostly underground except for a section of about 250 feet. They had to cut off a few bridge taps but has been working quite well for close to two years now. The line runs at about 25 Mb/s down and about 2 Mb/s up. This supports my low end Internet access subscription at 1.5 Mb/s up and down plus 2 HD and 2 SD TV channels simultaneously. I would have never thought this bit rate was possible over old copper of that length but I think I am at the outer limits of what can be done.
It's Sprint's or Verizon's little fat-credit-card-sized, high-speed cellular data-modem plus wi-fi router, made by Novatel.
cf.
formatting link
, which summarizes:
"... a device backconnecting to the cellular 3G network and frontconnecting to local (up to 10m/30ft distance) Wi-Fi devices ..."
Novatel reportedly has (or will soon have) a GSM/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA version out, too. I long for such a beasty, unlocked of course, for use with prepaid data SIMs while traveling.
This is typical of the phone company. They promise it to you and then they have no remorse on telling you they were wrong. Nothing new here.
You can only be sure of something when they actually install it.
When we moved to Columbia, South Carolina, into a newly developed neighborhood [with only a small complement of houses built and occupied as yet], we ordered a private line.
When the installer showed up, they told us it was going to be a four party line (this was in the early seventies). I protested. But he said there weren't enough pairs in the neighborhood and this was the best they could do. We were 'promised' that we'd have a private line within three months.
About eight months later, we realized that we were still on the four party line. We called and complained to the business office. They still couldn't give us a private line. But they said they could take us off the four party line and put us on the two party line. So they did.
I wish I could remember the time frame. But it was quite a while after that before they finally put more pairs in the neighborhood and we finally got our private line.
It seems a bit silly that a newly developed neighborhood [that is now enormous] wouldn't have enough pairs to support the development that is projected to take place.
The cable here is above ground and is in very bad shape. I have problems with the 6MB DSL. The cable is a mix of lead, 24/26 gage and goes all over the place. My guess is that there are still Bridge Taps all over the place. I watched the tich try to turn it up vial his Lap Top and it would not even try to start. A subscriber migh question this, but I install the Switches so I know the problems. A block over they can get it since the cable is about 1600 feet qand a bit newer. I think I might have gotten them moving, the tech who tried to get it up stopped by and told me they are now checking the condition of the cable.
Last year they did a conditioning on the cable for U-verse and that is when all the problems started, not they are going back over what was done. When my DSL takes a dump I just switch my Mac's Airport over to my Sprint MiFi (Mini Wifi) 4G Hub, gets about 4.5 down. Good thing I opted for unlimited Data.
Having worked for GTE for 30 years I have seen it all. When we first moved in here in 1977 we were on a 2 party line, because I worked for the phone company they never put anyone else on my line; within about 6 months they got the cable in place.
We had a major problem in Moreno Valley; (1979), a contractor built
100 units of housing and never contacted GTE or the cable company about the tract; you can guess what happened. GTE placed cables in place after the developer dug the streets up, but the Cable company said no way, and to this day there is no cable in that tract, but that was one of the first FIOS system to be deployed and everyone there signed up for it.
You would be surprised to know how many developments proposed by a developer never come to pass, and how many never reach their projected size. The Telco's forecasters try mightly to make a good judgment as to this because they would like to engineer enough facilities for what will actually be built and sold, but sometimes they miss. If they build too much, there will be a large and expensive plant lying fallow in the ground and not earning. Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
***** Moderator's Note *****
But if they build too little, potential customers turn to the competition, and then they're likely to stay away forever.
In the 1950's, my father moved us into a new house in a Boston suburb called Dedham. The once-sleepy farm hamlet - the home of millionairess Katherine Endicott - was overwhelmed by baby-boomer families that swamped it's manual telephone exchange and open-wire infrastructure, as the farmers sold out to developers and quarter-acre lots became the norm.
When my dad went in to order a phone, he told the sales clerk that he wanted a private line. The sales clerk said that he could only have an eight-party line and that he'd have to wait for ten months or more to get it.
My father, a former Marine who'd been shot on Guadalcanal, wasn't one to shrink from a fight, but he had also grown up in the Roxbury section of Boston, a place that by all accounts made New York's Hell's Kitchen seem like an Indian Ashram, and he had a _very_ low tolerance for arrogant bureaucrats. He asked the clerk if he could use her phone to make a call, and then informed her that he would call her back from his home the next day. The woman laughed in his face.
The next night, a man in a suit knocked on the door of our house, and told my father that there were two cable crews busy stringing new telephone cables from the junction point at Endicott circle, about two miles away. He said they could not be finished before 9 PM, and apologized for the delay. My dad told the man that he appreciated his hard work, and that 9 PM would be acceptable.
There's no mystery as to how my dad accomplished this miracle: my mother's father, you see, was the State Respresentative for Roxbury, and the Chairman of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives' Committee on Public Utility Regulation.
It took Ma Bell a few decades, but eventually she had an attack of common sense, and realized that the revenue she was losing by _not_ having people connected to the network far outstripped any savings that could be obtained by forcing customers to wait ten months for
8-party lines. When I was an employee of that same company, I found out that there were Engineering staff members who spent their days scanning newspapers and trade magazines and building-permit reports so as to have adequate cable or carrier ready and installed the day each new development opened.
Of course, the old attitudes didn't die as fast as we might wish: more than twenty years later, when Congressman Barney Frank's staff called in to order some extra lines in preparation for his upcoming campaign against a heavyweight contender named Marjorie Claprood, Ma Bell's old attitudes once again appeared. Representative Frank's staff was told that there were no lines available.
The next day, a courier deposited a large box on the central office steps, which I was called upon to sign for. It contained a device called an "AML-8", which was an analog multiplexing device that could use two pairs of wire to support 8 phone lines (Yes, it's the same idea as "N" carrier).
The device was strapped to the horizontal frame supports, and an extension cord was run over the lights and down the frame stanchions to power it. It was connected to eight dial tones (The CO Tech was given the line equipment numbers in a hand-written note), and to two cable pairs (which had been in use for two pay telephones in the building that housed the Congressman's office). From the time I opened the box until the Congressman's staff had eight new lines available, it took about three hours.
There is a moral to these stories: if you want Ma Bell to do something she doesn't feel like doing, all you need to do is find a way to remind her that she is only a big fish while in her little pond. The fastest way is to toss in a few sharks, but there are others.
Bill Horne (Speaking for myself) (Filter QRM from my address for direct replies)
In 2000 and 2001, Pacific Bell, U.S. West and Verizon were installing DSL as fast as they could, [and] they are now starting to use those, [but] now they are pushing U-Verse and FIOS, only this time the companies are only putting more units in as they sell the [existing] ones. We are putting [in] frames and power, but that is all. The same thing appears to be what is happening with upgrades in outside plant and [Fiber?] Nodes.
AT&T in California is cherry picking their installation of U-Verse. We live in an old neighborhood so I doubt we will ever see them in this part of town. OTOH, the local cable company (Cox) spent the bucks to bring fiber into every neighborhood in town.
The area I live in has U-verse, it is just that the cable is really bad, we have wind today and nothing but noise on the line.
I got a call from AT&T with the company line, I guess they forgot to tell the person who called me that I have over 40 years of telephone experience.
I talked to the PUC yesterday and follwed it up with a Formal written complaint today. It is not just the U-verse; it is also problems with DSL as well a voice. I also contacted the city because I believe they have a franchise agreement. All they have to do is replace about 900 feet of old lead cable and make sure that there are no more bridge taps; for you that do not know what a bridge tap is, it is a splice where the cable goes in two directions, so that it can be used at 2 points.
I suspect you filed an written informal complaint. ;-)
A formal complaint is a legal pleading, has to conform the PUCs rules of procedure and practice, and must allege, among other things, that an informal complaint was first filed. I've done a few formal complaints. They can be done without an attorney but you have to know how to walk through the minefield.
DSL is not a tariffed service. I believe the U-Verse is also not a tariffed service, which is part of why it is being pushed so aggressively.
Because these are not tariffed services, the PUC basically has no control over the telco. And if their contract is anything like the contract Verizon uses, you basically signed away all your rights to complain about anything when you purchased the service.
So, basically, it doesn't work, and the telco has no motivation to make it work. Welcome to the New Telecom Era.
Well, the fact such services aren't tariffed means the CPUC has no jurisdiction over their rates. But, even on tariffed services an individual cannot file a complaint about rates in any case. (takes a minimum of 25 subscribers or a governmental entity.)
But, AT&T operates within California because of a franchise granted by the CPUC. So, will they entertain a service complaint on a non-tariffed offering. It depends; they very well may on DSL and any component of U-Verse not regulated by a municipality.
This "it depends" minefield can only be navigated by legal counsel expert in public utility matters, thus the individual has no effective recourse even though he may technically have legal recourse.
Well the problem I'm having with the DSL is directly related to the condition of the cable from their cross connect box. It is over 30 years old and has all kinds of problems because of bad splices and other problems, like leaks; the cable is regulated and the voice service for my regular telephone has suffered with noise. AT&T has a Franchise agreement with the city and if the PUC can't do anything then the city should be able to since they agreed to supply the service to the whole city.
I'm well aware of how the communications business has changed; I have spent more then 40 years in it, 30 with GTE.
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