Nelson County residents who ordered BPL months ago received the following notice from IBEC, the company contracted by CVEC to install the broadband service:
Dear Customer,
IBEC is aware that many of you have been anxiously waiting for our BPL service for several months now. While we are doing everything in our power to get the high-speed service to you as quickly as possible, we had no way of knowing the issues that we would ultimately face with Verizon. We have now resolved those issues, but still face at least a few more weeks of waiting while Verizon finishes up their portion of the installation. Although the circumstances are out of our control, we do feel that an apology is due. We sincerely apologize that your service has been delayed.
We know this is very frustrating and we would like to let you know that we are just as anxious to provide you with our service as you are to receive it. We want to apologize to you again for this extended wait.
In light of these circumstances, IBEC would like to offer you our “backup dial-up service” that is included with your BPL service for free until we are able to activate your BPL Service. The dial-up service will be offered with no hourly usage limits at no cost to you.
Please call 1-888-IBEC-BPL if you would like to start using the dial-up service. We will be happy to help you.
Thanks for your patience,
IBEC customer Service
BPL installation was recently delayed when Verizon halted plans to continue implementing the system’s internet backbone. The move resulted in a stand-off that left customers wondering if the high speed internet service they paid for would ever be installed.
Has anybody tried this? We chose the BPL because dial-up does not work at our house, no matter what ISP we use.
Thursday; November 6, 2008 – 1:10 PM
Called 1-888-IBEC-BPL – automated response, press 1
Nice young man helps me.
Give your name. Walk through set up.
Phones:
263-4436 – Lovingston
980-2309 – Charlottesville
Told to wait a bit for the account to be created. When dialing, I get the ‘choking chicken’ but the authorization fails. I will try again later and report back here.
Well, it’s up and running as advertised. The speed is just what one might expect, i.e. a Ping of 131 ms to 146 ms; download 35-37 kpbs; upload 148-152 kpbs. Your mileage will vary.
I’d rather have financial compensation – like a month’s charge knocked off my broadband service when it comes.
Afterall, they have had our money since the summer.
But IBEC is probably too small a company to do that.
Still, dial-up is useless to me … this is almost 2009 – not 1999!
I’m using it until the 256K “mid-band” starts up.
My other dial up was costing me so hey…. why not ride for free till they iron out the last wrinkles.
Works without a hitch. Set it up on my Mac in literally 2 minutes.
PS: IBEC are Mac fans and walk the walk. Extra nice!
Yes, Erik, we are all Mac all the time here, too. The set up was a breeze. Great not having to ‘train’ the tech on how to open the System Preferences. Here at the house we are running an 3 GHz 8-core tower Mac Pro, a Mac Book Pro 2.16, a Dual 2 GHz tower, an old 800 MhZ TiBook, a new 2.1 GHz IceBook for my wife, and an old G3 IceBook for back-up – all over an Airport Extreme ‘n’ wireless net. I have a Mirror Door G4 and my son’s original Bondi iMac in storage at this point. We back them all up to external HDs using Time Machine with DeJa Vu for redundancy on my key files. Our son just left Apple in Austin a few months ago, and is now an Apple reseller in Asheville, NC.
Wow Greg that’s quite the quiver!
I’m using a Mac Pro 2.66 Quad, (6GB of Ram no less), and an old IBM Thinkpad (for those Windows moments), with an Airport extreme to spread the data around the house.
We have quite a few Macs in the wake that I miss. A Bondi iMac, a Sage iMac, a G4 733, a 1.8 G5.
But the G3 Pismo Powerbook was still my fave on so many levels. What a great machine.
There’s the Mac Classic up in the attic. I really need to get that down and play a game of Oregon Trail.
Brings a little tear to the eye.
I have a Mac Classic in my attic too, right next to the beloved Bondi Blue. I thought I was the only crazy person who can’t let go.
Oh me! We are all MAC here as well, and Nelly, we have two of those IMAC bubbles in storage, one is being turned into an aquarium! Sill have an old G-3 laptop pismo as well! Ahhh, memory lane of by gone MACS…But love the new ones too!
Hey! No fair, if you’re going to leave comments on here, at least speak English. :<} Airport Extreme, TIme Machine, Pismo…..
I hope they will offer 3mbit for $89.95 that is what they quote on their website. I think it will be great for hosting websites. I still have my fingers crossed. I am getting very tired of wireless ntelos which is maxed out to the point that i get dial up rates.
Old G-3!!! Oh my gosh, I started out with an Apple E2 or something like that before the SE (the one with the mouse). Now to see you guys trying to run 2GHz and 3GHz G4s or better on 35k dialup must be a killer. Macs just simply will not run that slow…you will burn out the breaks!
Henri….
You’re spot on here. This is the paradox of the situation. Lots of folks here have Macs or high end PC’s to do heavy lifting computer work, yet unless we cough up for $atellite, we’re stuck with dialup.
Looking forward to any speed increase.
Erik, agreed. Satellite internet…we have it, though better than dialup, it’s not true broadband as you see advertised all of the time on television. We’ve had both, Wildblue and Hughes, both are problematic, and the latency because of satellites (22,500 miles up – then back) can make it quite slow at times, especially on secure servers. Our experience has been somewhat better with Hughesnet, less down time, better speeds, better technical support, but again as an only option out here…. And yep Erik the expense gets ya. We’ve had to pay as much as $90.00 per month (earlier plans and equipment) down now $70.00 per month through optimizations such as newer sat modem, etc. But when you handle as many graphic files and picture images as we do, that’s about the only choice. That’s why BPL has such promise for businesses like our and yours that handle large files, in your case audio. If it works as advertised, it will be wonderful for so many people, fingers crossed!
Right. I mean I said forget setting up an FTP to let folks grab their audio files.
Soon….. soon.
Well, another MONTH has gone by. There’s an awful lot of silence out there about BPL for Nelson County. Does ANYONE have an update on progress from Martin’s Store station?
Yea, Greg, We have asked specifically for a date of service and have not gotten an answer. This week alone we have had three different inquiries outside of yours, wanting to know the same thing. I had a woman from Afton email this afternoon, said she spoke to an IBEC /Elliot crew today and they told her Verizon was still the hold up. Regardless of the problems this has been a total failure in execution, total.
NCL
Dear Santa,
I would like BPL by Christmas Day. This is a long overdue gift that my parents paid for last July. Verizon has been bad this year, so feel free to give them coal. IBEC needs a Public Relations Representative to keep us better informed. I hope that isn’t to much to ask.
Thanks,
Nelson County Christmas Wisher
Yep, this old woodworker doesn’t want or need much for a happy Christmas, but BPL is one thing he’d like to see under the tree. (Of course, I can wrap up the useless $99 modem still in its box, couldn’t I?) As you said, Christmas Wisher, it’s not so much the not ‘having’ as the not ‘knowing’ when kept in the dark by IBEC. I’ve set up Google Alerts on the strings “IBEC” and “BPL” and “International Broadband Electric Communications”. Most days they return notices from India or Ireland, and have nothing to do with our situation. The seeming inability of IBEC to keep the lines of communication open sows seeds of doubt about their ability to service the public once (if ever) up and running. If it’s a staffing issue, perhaps outsourcing the information feed would be cost effective. I’ve offered to set up a live Wiki or run a graphic map update for them via these forums and have heard nothing in response. Perhaps I don’t know who to contact. Open to suggestions from any and all out there. [gh]
Forget free dial-up, this has taken a ridiculously long time. I think IBEC needs to offer us a some free months of service! All I can say is, this BPL better be the best thing since sliced bread- after all this waiting, I better not be disappointed in my service!! I really hope this lack of communication for the past SIX months doesn’t spell bad customer service for us here on out.
Yea, Courtney we agree. These guys really are nice folks that try very hard. My conversations with Asa Gage (IBEC) in Alabama have been great. But IBEC lacks the media savvy and PR needed when something like this happens, regardless of who is to blame. The have failed the public relations test so badly that it will take months before public confidence is restored. And as you say, if there is one hiccup when this puppy is launched, they will never recover.
I was hopeful that with IBM now in the wings they could lean on them for some PR guidance and crisis management skills to help them better address customer concerns.
Their own website (screen capture above on 12.11.08) was last updated on November 5th. That is no way to operate.
All of us have been cheering and offering to help in this endeavor, but folks like Greg Heuer, who has a boat load of computer / internet knowledge, has been ignored in his own offers to help keep the public informed with some pretty neat ways to keep information out there.
He is right, this should be on an RSS feed via IBEC where people can subscribe and see what is happening at least weekly, if not daily at this point.
-T-
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So it’s now almost November, 2009, and i found out a few weeks ago that a few of our neighbors have the service we signed up for a few years ago. We got the modem, my husband was there the day they came and hooked up equipment on the pole out front. We’ve been waiting. After talking to the neighbors I finally called and now we’re getting our hookup we should have had, what a year ago ?