jammmin
join:2000-12-14
Upper Marlboro, MD
| Any BPL customers here to report?
Manassas Virginia is the first city in the US to be totally wired for BPL by Communications Technologies Inc.
In its recent press release, it reported having 700 customers and processing orders for another 500. It just recently wired the entire city.
It offers up to 3 megabit service for only $28.95 as per the company's website.
The city of Manassas reported that they are very happy with the service provided by the company already. |
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Vonage User5
join:2004-05-15
Hillsborough, NC | Its strange that there are so many people on this board so adamantly opposed to BPL, ANY means of deploying broadband should be encouraged. It makes me think some of these folks are working for the greedy cable/phone companys. |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| said by Vonage User5  :Its strange that there are so many people on this board so adamantly opposed to BPL, ANY means of deploying broadband should be encouraged. It makes me think some of these folks are working for the greedy cable/phone companys. Many people just oppose BPL's wireless interference problems which the industry has glossed over and the FCC has handled rather badly. Most of the folks that oppose BPL interference actually need broadband. Some of us who have studied the interference issues and system architecture by default know a lot of BPL's shortcomings from a business model standpoint.
The cable and phone companies have been pretty quiet about BPL. I doubt they see it as a threat.
I probably wouldn't care about BPL if it didn't have all the interference problems, although I find the hype, the truth stretching, the spoon-fed information journalism, possible funded reports/studies and lying by omission from the BPL industry annoying. |
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KB2PSM
join:2002-08-06
Long Beach, NY
| reply to Vonage User5
Please be clear that the opposition is not to increased broadband competition or about increasing the reach of high speed broadband. The concerns are purely with regards to the push of a faulty and dirty technology that intends to place broadband on the power lines. Yes, it could potentially present another option for some (probably none that will really need it), but the side-effects are too severe, especially when there are several technically superior alternatives.
So why then is BPL even being waved like a flag in front of the masses? The motivation here is not to provide a better service but for the power line companies to seek a piece of the broadband pie.
Be well,
Rob |
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qstick777
join:2005-11-22
Manassas, VA
| reply to jammmin
I tried BPL from Comtek and my results were horrible!
I could detail the whole ordeal, but I'll just point out the main problems.
1) According to their site (»www.comtekbroadband.com/_product···tial.htm) they have 24/7 customer support. The times that I have called before "normal" business hours I have gotten an answering service offering to take a message and have somebody return my call. I use the term "normal business hours" very loosely because this has happened several times when I called in at 9:30 am!
2) They don't tell you that there is a 72 hour (business days - weekends don't count) verify period. You have to plug the modem in and leave it plugged in for 72 hours to make sure your service will be stable. Mine was not - the City had to come out and install a meter socket repeater.
3) I never received speeds anywhere close to what is advertised. The best I was able to receive was 276k down and 313k up. Typical results were 190k/212k and 120k/276k using the speed tests on this site. Pages would time out and when they did load it was painfully slow. They advertise the service as "10-15 times faster than dial-up." Obviously I never saw that. I can connect with dial-up at anywhere from 43k up to 53k, so I would expect at least 384k....I barely (and rarely) saw even half of that.
All told, I had "active" service for 3 weeks. At that point I was more than willing to switch back to cable and even pay for somebody to move my cable outlet. $29/month for BPL versus $60/month for 4mb cable - I just couldn't make the numbers for BPL make sense.
Other side notes:
I canceled my service last Monday (BTW - you can't call and cancel, you have to return your modem to their "retail" site - you could go by the hours on their website, but the person rarely works those hours - sorry, long story and cause of much frustration). I has been a week, and I still do not have a credit back to my account.
Also, check their website and you'll find this: "Please be advised that all cancellations will be effective at the end of the current month. We do not issue pro rated credit for mid-month cancellations."
So, for me, I signed up in the middle of October and paid quarterly - it was pro-rated, so I paid $72.23. I actually got 3 weeks of useable service, but since I canceled on November 15th, I still have to pay for the rest of November. Nevermind that I already returned the modem, so there is no way to use the service (not like it was really useable to begin with). So, basically I will be stuck paying $44.44 for 3 weeks of horrible service! That is even more expensive than Comcast and my 4mb cable connection!
Good luck to those that can get the service to work as advertised. I don't want people to think this is just sour grapes - I think the service sounded really great and as soon as I heard it was available I signed up and canceled my cable. Unfortunately for me, I never saw anything close to what was promised. I think the technology sounds great and is very promising for people that have no other choices for broadband (I don't even qualify for DSL), but I feel that they still have a long way to go. I also feel that Comtek has a lot to work out as far as their customer service and other business issues.
That's just my experience and my 2 cents on the issue. |
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