Charter Spectrum → Re: [Other] I wish you would expand to unserved area...

Charter could potentially pick up 15 customers if they would extend their line about 500 feet to get it into my subdivision and they won't do that. I asked what it would cost just to get it to my house (I'm a bit further down the street) and they wanted $8k to do the install. Going to the local office, calling, and using chat has been no help to me.

I live not very far from you (north of Asheville), so you may be dealing with some of the same people. I pay $110/mo to have unlimited 4g through US Cellular...it's an option if you're willing to pay for it. I get on average 20mbit down and 7mb up. I live pretty close to the tower.

I feel your pain. Good luck with the 3 miles, but don't hold your breath.

Hate to break it to you but if Charter didn't care before, they CERTAINLY don't give a darn now with their new, greedy CEO. If they can't make "easy" money on a project like this they won't bother with it.

I don't even have strong cell service at my house (1 bar in certain spots on verizon). How are your ping times?
Its a sad affair considering we only live around 7 miles from city limits.

Asheville definitely has decent wireless ISPs though, I tried to obtain service. Unfortunately they are one county away from reaching Western Burke Co.

I was actually given the name of the guy in charge of the budget and expansions for charter in neighboring Lenoir. Again unfortunately he is hardly ever in the office.

It's a business, not a charity.

Have you looked at »www.lightleap.net/ ? Looks like they cover the Morganton area. Not very fast speeds but definitely better than dialup. I don't know anything about them.

On my U.S. Cellular connection I just ran some tests and put them at the bottom of the post for you.

If you want me to do any more tests let me know and I'll be glad to do so. My wife plays World of Warcraft with no latency issues or anything.

Of course it is. But there are degrees of profit making.

The attitude the most recent CEO has is very narrow minded and short term oriented. I'd put money on it that he has an MBA or related degree. After all what does he care, he comes in rakes in as much profit in as short a time as possible (possibly damaging long term company health) and struts out with a huge golden parachute and plenty of perks left over. Yeah, he isn't alone but he is just another number cruncher and spread sheet pimp. LOL

In charters case there's huge losses and minimal losses, profits are almost non exisistant. They've had ONE minimally profitable quarter in the last five years:
»ycharts.com/companies/CH ··· t_margin

True but really is it because the company can't make a profit easily OR is it because the executive management is incompetent and short sighted?

Alex I'll take "Incompetent Manglement" for 1000!

No, it's just smart business. Expanding into areas that would take decades to recoup one's investment is moronic. Despite your personal-misgivings are about the current strategy of the company, spending ridiculous amounts of money to expand into unprofitable areas kinda goes against the whole idea of actually making money, which is what a business is supposed to do.

I the above goes against your claim that he's "very narrow minded" and "short term oriented".

It sounds like you're taking an opinion of one or more facets of the company and applying it to the whole.

You seem very defensive PasserBy. The executive offices probably aren't used to a "customer" being persistent with their dissatisfaction in the way I have been on the internet.

I'm not disagreeing with the way Charter is handling this particular case. They are actually correct.

However, if the customer(s) is/are willing to bear the entire cost of providing the infrastructure to an area I would hope Charter would agree to it.

Your dissatisfaction doesn't have any teeth.

Your rants don't show up on any reports and aren't causing any checks to be written. They're beneath the interest of the executives.

If that is so ,why are you and others, with an apparent deeper interest, responding?

I'm just one of the many users on this board getting tired of your pointless rants and empty threats to leave. How is this making any difference to Charter executives? We read what you had to say 4 months ago and it hasn't changed.

Just do it already and be gone.

That would make a difference to me and others. It'd also put you on a Charter report as a customer who left over cost.

My date of cancellation is next week, it's already set. But until then I am STILL a Charter customer.

I find it interesting that when folks disagree with Charter (and obviously there are many here) there are "pointmen" (not the mods) that want to lambaste and ridicule dissatisfied customers when they have every right to voice their concerns.

Just like us, you've been telling people who can't afford it to leave.

»Stop subscribing to greedy companies!
»Re: Charter - Cost Doubled - Can't reach by telephone to cancel

WOW!!! Maybe 4G isn't too bad! Hopefully I'll have 4G as a possible option in the future. Sucks I'm going to have to sign a 2 year contract with a satellite internet for now.... booo.

I'm working with a NC Commerce Broadband Expansion Director, he's working on drawing up grant proposals. Also, I've done the math it wouldn't take more than 5-7 yrs to pay off the investment ($300k MAX BEFORE grants). Thus I'm not asking them to be a charity, I'm asking them to take my money, state money, residents money, and start up a standard fee to put in a UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND like both the power company and telephone company charge requiring service to all households. (YES I KNOW THAT WAS GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTED, but it does work).
However, I do understand business and you are right in that its a good size investment. As they would be the ONLY cable company to service the area on top of the only ISP above 3Mbps, it would IMO be one of those "spend money to make money" situations. I currently have charter (for the next 4 days, moving to the new house on Sunday) and while its $174/month, I LOVE my 100+Mbps down, 6+ Mbps up, and HD cable. I've had problems, but I would rather pay 174 for everything, rather than $150 for a 25g data limit satellite internet package + a separate DirecTV bill. My point being, MOST WOULD rather pay the one payment for a fast, reliable, internet connection w/out data limits and contracts. This leaves me to deduct through reasoning if MOST people would rather pay for Charter (or any other cable company that invested in the area), thus, guaranteeing them money, and quite a bit of money at that.

Once again, I'm not trying to dispute all your points, quite honestly, many of them are just; I'm just saying that its not a complete monetary loss.

****---Oh and yes I've been in touch with Lightleap Applerule. They have business speeds up to 150Mbps and pings under 50ms for around $130 and they are currently surveying the area looking for places to post some repeaters. They will be contacting me shortly with progress.---****

I'm just hoping we can get more 4g expansion and lower rates. I'm not holding my breath for cable in my area, especially considering Charter's financial state. I hope you do wind up getting somewhere with it though.

Good luck!

They give you inflated bullshit quotes to discourage you from doing it. Fiber is about $5000 per mile to lay, and cable is about $2000 per mile to lay. 500 feet would need a single amp, wouldnt need fiber, and could be done for under $1000. Call an independent contractor and ask them about how much it would cost to lay the run. If its a reasonable amount, contact charter, and tell them that you would get the run put in if they get the permits(or if its private property, get all involved parties written permission) and that the run will be to their nearest node, and all they would have to do is hook it up. See if they will play ball that way.

Where did you get your numbers from? A mile of hardline cable alone would cost more than 2000. Then add in connectors, hanging hardware or trenching, permits, and labor and its way more than 2000 per mile of cable plant. Fiber really isn't much different these for the outside plant install costs depending on the bundle count. It's the electronics on either end that make fiber cost more.

An amp, tap, hardware, and cable for a 500 foot run is more than 1000.

»www.ctcnet.us/CTCCostsFo ··· ions.pdf

and I quote: The cost of a 6 count fiber cable is $2000 per mile, while an 864 count cable is $50000 per mile. Im assuming that since fiber is more expensive than cable right now, and this is only going to add 10 or so subs, which would only need a single or maybe 2 coax cables, and a few amps along the way, counting in labor, it is less than $5000 per mile to run cable, and probably a lot less than that, since charter usually has blanket permits for the entire area, so they aren't paying twice, and the plant or line end always has extra capacity(most of the time). They give you inflated figures to discourage line extensions because they don't want to maintain them, and the new CEO is basically gutting the company of anything that made sense in preparation for a sale(personal opinion, but thats what the feels tell me), they will not do any line extensions or new runs unless they are required to by franchising agreements. The other place I would check is your local city hall to see what their franchising agreement with the city was, and what its boundaries are. If your residence is within their agreement area, charter usually has a legal obligation to run to you, or it loses the right to use the public right of way access as it does.

The cost of the materials doesnt change very much, its more a cost of the labor and method needed to install it. Most places can get away with plowing, and I really doubt the figure of 70k per mile, since they trench a channel, lay the cable, already lined in conduit, then fill it in, all in the same motion. I have seen this done with just two people. I suspect that the cost they are associating with the install is greatly inflated, and this is just fiber, not coaxial. with FTTH, each person needs their own fiber. with cable, a single line can carry several people, so, the install for cable is probably much cheaper, and if I were to guess what the cost would be per mile at the rate I had to have some cable installed and run at my grammas house(1200 for 450 feet, plus power source for amp), I would put it at more close to 20k per mile all said and done. The other half is the permits. Most people don't go researching what kind of permits these companies have, but if you look, in most places, they have a blanket build permit, which covers the permit cost end of it, so they are not paying for another permit every build or repair they have to do. Just looking around online, looks like the going rate for directional boring(minus cost of cable) is about $5.50 per foot. Thats 29k per mile if you just bored it. You really only need the bore to get under roads and sidewalks, and plow the rest. Since most directional boring for cable is less than 2 feet down, and is mostly soft soil, maybe $6 per foot.

Looking at the USDOT sheet »ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publica ··· cost.htm

seems that plowing is only aobut $1.50ish per foot, which is 7900 per mile. Adding in cost of product, with decent rated RG11u at about 2 per foot, and of course, a few amps and other stuff along the way, im betting the entire thing could be done(the whole 3 miles) for less than 70k. Im also going to guess that if you contract in those 15 subs for 2 years, with phone and internet, those lines pay for themselves in less than 10 years. seriously, as much as you think infrastructure takes decades to pay off, it does not, and it never will At most, I would think a mile lay of cable has to pay for itself in less than 10 years. If you get 15 subs, at 55 per month on the internet(which is near all profit for charter, whereas, TV is not, and phone is not a bit profit either), thats 9900 per year they pull from 15. so, maybe 8000 after expenses. even at 70, thats an infrastructure payoff in a little under 9 years. if someone orders more service, it pays off faster. They also get grants and government pays, as well as the ad revenue from the new eyes, and a few other things that result in revenue.

I could probably pull studies and papers for you all day long, and you would still tell me that the cost is not worth it, and that it would take 100 years for the equipment to pay off. Fact of the matter is, is that most of the lines laid in the US in the last 30-50 years have been paid for by public funding, and then sold or handed over to private companies(which still goes on today, which is why the superfund, AKA, the Universal service fund is getting reworked so the companies can collect MORE for laying lines made for broadband). Why do you think AT&T chose to go with FTTN and use the existing copper phone lines? When AT&T has to run new phone lines, in nearly all cases, they get paid more than it costs them to run the new phone lines, and then they own the lines. the US DOT has already laid miles and miles of Fiber, that remains dark because no one really knows its there. They lay fiber next to any highway they build or repair now, and those lines go to waste, or, as happened in several states, were paid for by taxes and then handed off to provide backbone services for a private company who took ownership of them(at no cost).

Charter could pick up 0 customers.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

20k per mile is a more realistic guess and 10x what you originally guessed. A 10 year pay off is normally what they shoot for.

Other than that and the quotes taken from that paper, most of the rest of what you said is just wrong.

Especially the part "you would still tell me that the cost is not worth it, and that it would take 100 years for the equipment to pay off" because I think it's worth it, but it has to pay off in ten years.

BTW, RG11 for 3 miles? really? That truly shows you don't know what it takes to design and build the infrastructure needed for this. That would take at least 16 amplifiers in cascade, at 40dB gain each, to make that distance just for the RF loss at 1 Ghz. Good luck powering it. Most cable companies would look at running fiber to a new node at that distance from existing plant, depending on the number of homes passed along the way.

Now here's a couple of very itemized bids I found on a Collier County Florida government website for a build of 4000 ft of 12ct fiber, 2 nodes, 17000 ft of hardline feeder coax, 8 amps, 10 LEs, in a high density area needing mostly directional boring. It was to replace an existing aerial system for a small residential area with an underground one for Comcast because of a county underground utility requirement. Everything is already designed and ROWs obtained:

Project:
»agenda.colliergov.net/SI ··· =2360645
Bids:
»agenda.colliergov.net/SI ··· =2360644
Docs site:
»bid.colliergov.net/bid/d ··· 22D0F972

One bid was $347k, the other was $543k.The total cost isn't important because the installation is totally different then what the OPs situation is, but the itemized costs can help give a good estimate.

The nice thing is it gives unit costs for just about EVERYTHING needed in the build and it's 3 months old so the prices are current. Fiber, coax, amps, lube, connectors, etc.

Well, they would for sure get one ...so they would get 1-15 customers. I see what you're saying though.

Thanks for these numbers man. The $4 a ft. fiber price i received was from the folks in the office. Also, I spoke with a charter field tech (level 2 or 3) yesterday, and he said the best thing to do is have everyone interested in the area flood the phone lines/emails/etc with service requests. Chances are if 10+ are interested (there are 20+) they'll look into the expansion.

If there isn't a 5 yr. return on investment it will not happen.