So Just Where Is Verizon On This Whole BPL / IBEC Implementation???

5
593
A crew installs BPL equipment along lines in Nelson County, Virginia
A crew installs BPL equipment along lines in Nelson County, Virginia

Afton – Nelson County, Virgina
First thanks to those of you who have commented and sent your entries in to the BPL Modem Photo Contest. We’ve had some good ones so far, so keep them coming!

Entire post history here on BPL in Nelson County, Virginia.

I got an e-mail today from a person I consider a friend asking why we weren’t taking aim at Verizon since they are the problem, not IBEC. I agree a little with my friend. As I have said before, Verizon is Goliath in this endeavor and they aren’t playing fair. Verizon stands to lose a fair amount of money in retrospect. I don’t know for sure, but many of their managers are probably having buyer’s remorse after seeing the response IBEC has had with their pre selling of modems back in the summer. of 2008.

We last e-mailed with Harry Mitchel, the Verizon PR person for Virginia, on October 20 then again the 23rd. We were asking for a clarification on the status of two things, IBEC, and the Verizon / Alltel Wireless merger. Here’s the e-mail verbatim.

From: “info@nelsoncountylife.com”
Date: October 20, 2008 6:38:26 AM EDT
To: “Harry J. Mitchell”
Subject: Status On BPL T-1 installs in Nelson County, VA

Hi Harry,

Can you please update our original request for an answer regarding this situation?

We expected to hear something additional back on Friday and never got any information.

We don’t prefer going to corporate in NY to get these answers, but we will if necessary, we have published that information for others if they feel it necessary air their concerns over this matter.

Harry, I cannot convey how serious this situation is becoming. We are taking a very strong position on this because of the way it has been handled. I realize you are simply the messenger and you must relay what your managers tell you, but information has been one of the biggest shortcomings in this entire debacle, from both Verizon and IBEC as well. Please do not take our matter of fact position personally, as it is not meant as such.

Our company, along with others in the community feel they have been left with no other option other than to contact the FCC and the Virginia State Regulatory Commission regarding this situation to try to get something done or at least some answers. And, since this involves large federal grants to build out the system, it has become a rather convoluted ordeal.

One other question we need confirmation on while we are looking into all of this; Has Verizon’s Wireless side in fact scrapped all plans to build out their wireless network in Nelson County, Virginia? I think we pretty much know the answer is yes from what your engineering side has told property owners here, but we do need an official company response on that as well. That promised to be a good alternative broadband solution as well via wireless sites.

I understand Verizon will acquire existing Alltel sites in Nelson because of the merger, but plans to build out any additional new sites have been scraped.

Harry, again thank you in advance, and we look forward to additional details today.

Best,
Tommy

Harry did respond with the answers regarding IBEC saying that engineering was looking into it for safety issues and that was the immediate delay. That gels with what IBEC told us as well. Then on October 23rd he got back with us for a final time, never to respond since.

On Oct 23, 2008, at 6:03 PM, Mitchell, Harry J. wrote:

Tommy, et al:

In looking at the story tacked up on your site, I didn’t see your subsequent post that included my response from last Thursday.

And I did not see your e-mail from 10/20. Judging from the e-mail address, it might have hit my spam filter.

Nevertheless, I will circle back with my contacts to update you on the IBEC situation and check on your Verizon Wireless question.

I’m scheduled off tomorrow but will keep this moving.

Thanks,
Harry

We never got any additional info on the IBEC question and never got an answer on the Verizon / Alltel question.

IBEC has been dealt a pretty bad hand here, granted. But IBEC has mishandled this from the beginning as well. Communication is key in situations like this, and promise after promise broken without explanation does not build confidence by customers. Only after NCL began covering this situation in detail, almost to a nagging point, did IBEC ever respond. They still have been operating that way. Again, only after we made our “Coal In Your Stocking” entry on December 16th, did they send out a mass e-mail to customers explaining the latest. That is where IBEC and frankly CVEC both are at fault. CVEC will tell you they have nothing to do with IBEC, and “only provide the lines.” Somebody brought them here, IBEC didn’t just start hanging gear without permission.

Verizon, according to IBEC, is the cause of the latest delay, but promises the study at Martin’s store will be done this week.

“That testing will be done on Thursday, December 18. With this information, they will install isolation equipment. While much of this work could have been accomplished in the six months since the order for the T-1 lines were placed, there is a specific path that Verizon has indicated and IBEC will complete the steps along the path expeditiously. Once the engineering report is completed, Verizon has indicated they will activate the T-1 lines within 30 days.”

We like many others applaud IBEC for what they are trying. It is no small feat. As I have said time and time and time and time again, they are a nice bunch of people to deal with. But their biggest fault has been information. And planning. These engineering snafus should have been dealt with long before they went public promising BPL. The pre-sale of modems was a smart business move, no question. It gives IBEC valuable information on public interest, and much needed cash flow as the project is being built out. Much of this was unforeseen on IBEC’s part, and admittedly has not happened to them in other markets before Nelson.

Let’s hope this one last delay is……one last delay.

Meanwhile here is Verizon’s information if folks would like to wish the CEO’s office a Merry Christmas!

Ivan G. Seidenberg – Chairman and CEO
Verizon Communications, Inc
140 West St.
New York, NY 10007
(212) 395-1000

5 COMMENTS

  1. Hi everyone,
    Whenever BPL is finally up and working, do you think it will be much faster than wildblue? I currently have wildblue and am extremely dissatisfied and am worried that i am getting my hopes up with BPL. I am assuming latency will be much better, but how about overall performance? Will it compare to DSL/Cable at all? Just curious…
    Tommy

  2. I’ve losts all hope in the IBEC and plan to send my modern back. They have taken a lots of peoples money on bad planing. Also looks like they have to many cooks in the kitchen you have cvec , verizon and talking about AT &T. Who knows it starting being 30 days and its been 6 month and still talking January ??????

  3. Hi Rev Thompson,

    Having had both Wildblue and currently on Hughesnet for sat internet, I can tell you the advertised speeds for the initial rollout of BPL aren’t impressive in comparison. The attraction, at least for us, is hopefully more stability. WB is very problematic during rain, even light precipitation and they have oversold their capacity so many times I have lost count. A new satellite about a year ago was supposed to eliminate that problem, but from the input I have from current users here in Nelson, it’s not much better. Hughes, might be considered a notch better, but barely. They are a bigger company (not always a good thing) but their infrastructure is better and they own a lot of those birds hovering over the earth up there. Generally we lose our service only when a big rain event is happening. But it’s frequent enough that it is a hindrance.

    Right you are! BPL will do away with that pesky latency issue of traveling 22,500 miles up and back. It will be a big help on secure servers like banking, etc. Sat internet by it’s nature, can’t overcome that. When a secure server sees all of that delay, it gets worried and takes a while to complete the request. In theory, BPL should eliminate that. It should also eliminate the issue of having no service in rain and or heavy snow events.

    Sat internet has the other big taboo, download / upload restrictions.(FAP) or fair access policy. I personally know two WB customers who blew through their allowed upload / downloads and were restricted to dialup speeds for 30 days. Hughes has a similar policy but only penalizes the user for 24 hours vs 30 days. Either one is total highway robbery for what we pay as sat users.

    Personally, I can tell you we are keeping both satellite and BPL for awhile. The roll out of BPL, for obvious reasons, leaves me with no faith that the service will be any better. In our case redundancy is a must, and I am also worried that with BPL once the switch finally is thrown, bandwidth may be an immediate problem with everyone getting on all at once. I would love to be put in my place and proven wrong on this, but we’ll just have to see once it does happen, one day.

    All of that said, if IBEC can deliver what they say they can, it should be a more stable, reliable service with no FAP, and eventually some pretty nice speeds if they open it up to the higher tiers of speed mentioned.

    -T-

  4. Hi Tommy-

    We’re just trying to sort our way through all this info. We are currently using Ntelos, which operates through a radio satellite signal. The speed is usually way better than dial-up, but not fast enough to download a U Tube video. Weather definitely affects connection quality, but there is no FAP problem.

    Is your experience with Huges Net better than this and just what are the initial speeds promised by IBEC?

    Thanks,
    Bonnie and Dan
    Tanbark Drive

  5. Bonnie & Dan, lots of this depends on which nTelos service you are using. Know this gets very confusing. If you have had it for any length of time, you are probably using the older Navini modem type service. A little box with a flip up style of antenna. I am not totally sure on this, but I think they will eventually phase that out for the very reasons you mention. It can be very unreliable in poor weather, and once the foliage comes back in the summer months it many times becomes worse as well. The 3G wireless mobile broadband is the standard, more or less, now in the wireless broadband arena. Not to say that others don’t work, but the technology is working in that direction.

    BPL, if it ever gets up and works, may be the best solution for you. It’s just unclear at this point how reliable or unreliable the service will be since they have yet to get their network up and optimized. BPL has many inherent problems, but if they can get the net stable once they bring it up, it will serve some areas that have no other choice.

    Yes, on Hughesnet Satellite we can view videos from most websites and from youtube.com The problem you get into with Hughes and Wildblue, their competitor, is a restriction to so much usage within a 24 hour period. And viewing videos it doesn’t take long to exceed their daily allotment. Hughes will cut you back to dialup speeds for 24 hours, WB for 30 days! If you exceed their threshold, and they are both very expensive.

    As for the promised speeds by IBEC for BPL, the current package according to the information on their published website, says it will be 256K for 29.95 per month, which frankly for speed is nothing in this day and time. Better than dialup, you bet, but left in the dust to most anything else. Now if they can provide the upper tiers of service listed there, 1,3 and 5 mbps, now we’re talking! But as you can see from their website you are getting into some pricey territory, and I would have to see 5 mbps working to ever believe that BPL can deliver that on a consistent basis. But believe me, I would love for them to prove me wrong, that would be fantastic news!

    I will know much more on the nTelos potential after a Friday meeting and I’ll pass that on here!

    -T-

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here