IBEC: BPL To Activate This Week In Northern Nelson County – Updated 1.3.09

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386

Afton – Nelson County, Virginia

Update: 1.3.09 :
We have received an e-mail from a customer inquiring about activation and said they have been told by customer service they would be activated January 5th. We’ll let you know the status when the switch is thrown.

Original Post:
Today customers received this noticed from IBEC in Alabama regarding the status of BPL activation in Nelson County. According to the highlighted section below, customers in the Tanbark area of Route 151 should have service “this week” according to the e-mail blast sent to customers on New Year’s Day.

Should anyone be activated please drop a comment or e-mail here to let others know that you have been activated and what your service is like.

This is certainly positive news.

From: “IBEC Customer Service”
Date: January 1, 2009 12:07:25 PM EST
To: “info”
Subject: IBEC BPL Deployment Update – January 1, 2009: Revised

BPL Installation Update- – January 1, 2009

Last week, IBEC reported to you on the status of testing at the Martins Store substation required by Verizon prior to the activation of the T-1 Lines. IBEC contracted with a utility specialist who traveled from North Carolina and conducted tests to assess soil resistivity and other factors that would allow Verizon to confirm that a connection to the BPL system would pose no threat to the communications company equipment.

The engineer conducted the tests on December 18 and the results were submitted to Verizon the same day. IBEC updated you last week on December 24 after resubmitting information to Verizon.

Today, the Inductive Coordination & Electrical Protection (ICEP) Engineer for Verizon notified IBEC that the test data indicated that the completion of the T-1 line activation should be able to move ahead quickly, subject to confirmation that the Verizon equipment pedestal is more than 35 feet away from the substation ground grid. IBEC estimates that it is more than 200 feet away and does not foresee any further delay. This is good news and indicates that the activation of the T-1 lines is close at hand.

IBEC has resubmitted the Verizon data form to the ICEP Engineer and will be in touch with the local Verizon supervisor to coordinate the final phase of the T-1 line activation. We will share the estimated date that the Martins Store substation area will begin to pass Internet data by way of the BPL system.

There is more good news. The north Rockfish Valley T-1 injection point is scheduled to be activated by the end of this week. Once activated, Internet traffic will flow through the backbone equipment and the IBEC customer service reps will begin contacting customers to activate their BPL modems and optimize their Internet connections. That injection point will serve customers who live north of Tanbark Drive and some customers to the south of that location. Please wait for IBEC to contact you after their engineers have activated the backbone equipment.

The third BPL injection point lies to the east of Route 29. It will be powered up on January 5 and Verizon will activate it after that date. IBEC will provide you will specific information about this site after January 5.

The other component to this project is the completion of the buildout of the BPL system, or the installation of regenerators (BRU’s) that pass Internet data along the main power lines and the installation of the Customer Access Units (CAU) that are installed near the electric transformer at each subscriber’s home or business. The Davis H. Elliott contract crews have been working hard, both during Christmas week as well as during New Years week. The crews are installing about 90 units (BRU’s and CAU’s) per week and have about 300 total units to go before the initial phase of the BPL system is complete. While weather conditions and terrain can affect the present buildout rate, the crews are working hard and we hope that you will offer them encouragement when they are on your street or in your neighborhood.

We hope that this information has been helpful and encouraging and ask that you get it touch with us if you have questions or comments that will help us to serve you. To do so, you can call 888-423-2275 or e-mail us at service@IBEC.net . Thank you for your support.

Thanks for your patience,

IBEC Customer Service

6 COMMENTS

  1. Hey Courtney, As of last week the message above said they would be activating that week. But as we updated, a customer that called their customer service was told it would be today in the Tanbark area. Anyone that does get activated, post a comment here or e-mail us so we can let others know it is coming up!

  2. Latest BPL Notice posted on their IBEC site 1.5.09:

    “BPL Installation Update
    January 5th, 2009

    Last week, IBEC reported to you on the status of testing at the Martins Store substation required by Verizon prior to the activation of the T-1 Lines. IBEC contracted with a utility specialist who traveled from North Carolina and conducted tests to assess soil resistivity and other factors that would allow Verizon to confirm that a connection to the BPL system would pose no threat to the communications company equipment.

    The engineer conducted the tests on December 18 and the results were submitted to Verizon the same day. IBEC updated you last week on December 24 after resubmitting information to Verizon.

    Today, the Inductive Coordination & Electrical Protection (ICEP) Engineer for Verizon notified IBEC that the test data indicated that the completion of the T-1 line activation should be able to move ahead quickly, subject to confirmation that the Verizon equipment pedestal is more than 35 feet away from the substation ground grid. IBEC estimates that it is more than 200 feet away and does not foresee any further delay. This is good news and indicates that the activation of the T-1 lines is close at hand.

    IBEC has resubmitted the Verizon data form to the ICEP Engineer and will be in touch with the local Verizon supervisor to coordinate the final phase of the T-1 line activation. We will share the estimated date that the Martins Store substation area will begin to pass Internet data by way of the BPL system.

    There is more good news. The north Rockfish Valley T-1 injection point is scheduled to be activated by the end of this week. Once activated, Internet traffic will flow through the backbone equipment and the IBEC customer service reps will begin contacting customers to activate their BPL modems and optimize their Internet connections. That injection point will serve customers who live north of Tanbark Drive and some customers to the south of that location. Please wait for IBEC to contact you after their engineers have activated the backbone equipment.

    The third BPL injection point lies to the east of Route 29. It will be powered up on January 5 and Verizon will activate it after that date. IBEC will provide you will specific information about this site after January 5.

    The other component to this project is the completion of the buildout of the BPL system, or the installation of regenerators (BRU’s) that pass Internet data along the main power lines and the installation of the Customer Access Units (CAU) that are installed near the electric transformer at each subscriber’s home or business. The Davis H. Elliott contract crews have been working hard, both during Christmas week as well as during New Years week. The crews are installing about 90 units (BRU’s and CAU’s) per week and have about 300 total units to go before the initial phase of the BPL system is complete. While weather conditions and terrain can affect the present buildout rate, the crews are working hard and we hope that you will offer them encouragement when they are on your street or in your neighborhood.

    We hope that this information has been helpful and encouraging and ask that you get it touch with us if you have questions or comments that will help us to serve you. To do so, you can call 888-423-2275 or e-mail us at service@IBEC.net. Thank you for your support.

    Thanks for your patience,

    IBEC Customer Service”

    An earlier notice referenced above from January 1st, indicated customers in the Tanbark area would have service by week’s end, technically Saturday of last week. Though this is most likely an error on IBEC’s part in the wording of the notice and giving them the benefit of the doubt probably meant this week????

    NCL also received an e-mail this morning from another customer who spoke with IBEC today and they told us – they were told the following:

    “They just sent me the Jan 1 update that said verizon work would be done on the 5th. ???

    The CSA told me they do not have the networking addresses programed yet for the equipment that now hangs on the power lines.

    The CSA also said that not all the networking equipment has been hung on the mains.

    It could be that they need the internet connection in order to program the routing and addresses (my guess) and once the internet is connected they will start to assign ipa’s.”

    In a somewhat related matter, Ntelos out of Waynesboro will most likely be offering high speed mobile broadband service or something similar here in the Rockfish Valley in the very, very near future. The site has passed all regulatory approval hurdles and is under construction along Route 151 just south of Route 6, ironically Martins Store. They are already doing this in other portions of Virginia with great success. It is approximately 10 times faster than dialup speeds.

    More as we know.
    NCL

  3. Ntelos would bring us full circle from 1999. We started our internet connections (dial-up) using Cornerstone out of Cville because they did the UVa connections at the time. Very personable staff, highly trained, offered great customer service. Cstone was sold to Ntelos at some point, and all our connections were transferred. Customer service went bye-bye, and speeds dropped to the basement. DNS addresses were routinely changed without notification and everything would grind to a halt until it was realized what happened, customer service was called (after all, you had NO access to the website at that point), and new DNS were defined and entered. On top of that, the dial-up connection would frequently terminate itself for no reason, often as quickly as 5 minutes after you finally heard the chicken choke and squeal. If you were in Cville and had Ntelos service when Sprint became Embarq you were told there was going to be a significant surcharge attached to your connection bill if you kept your Ntelos addresses. You were obligated to switch all your emails to embarqmail. Some day we will look back on all this and laugh. Right now, tears are more the mode of the day.

  4. BPL Activation, great question Victor, Has anyone been activated? It was supposed to happen by today. Drop us a comment or an e-mail if you have!

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