AT&T Service in New Subdivision -Cedar Lake (Hope: sales, new home) - Northwest Indiana - Indiana (IN) - City-Data Forum

iidreamtheaterii · 06-17-2014, 09:41 AM

Cedar Lake is no doubt a small town that's just now starting to get the new subdivisions up and running. I get that. HOWEVER; I find it unbelievably frustrating that I cannot get internet service in my newly built home because they didn't put the proper infrastructure and will continue to have problems as they sell more plots in the future.

I flagged down an AT&T technician that was servicing a neighbor of mine and asked him what the deal was. He explained there was only so many fiber lines pulled to the tech box in the subdivision when it was just starting up and all of them have been used up. They have NUMEROUS orders waiting to be filled for new construction homes asking to pull new in but still have nothing planned in the foreseeable future.

I was told my Builder has requests in, as well as a dozen of my neighbors within the neighborhood, but to no avail, AT&T still has nothing scheduled to pull new lines.

Comcast is not in this subdivision yet either, so at this point I am stuck with 3 bad options.

1. Buy a laptop/desktop for home and purchase DIAL UP service to be able to utilize the internet, not knowing if I can even get a wireless router to accept this to allow my televisions to get the shows I want to watch on Netflix and/or tablet.

2. Find a Dish service that can bore holes into my new roof to be mounted and possibly get shotty signal during storms that will knock out my service from time to time.

3. Upgrade my cell phone service to inlude large amounts of Data and get MiFi box to stream things from; but might go over on data and pay outrageous fees.

This is a frustration post that is looking to know if anyone is having a similar problem and/or has resolved this. Any advice is welcomed.

skobabe8 · 06-18-2014, 03:14 PM

Just from my experience, DirecTV has the best TV service, customer service and user interface (that includes Comcast). Our service gets interrupted maybe 2-4 times per year from the weather, and never more than 5-10 minutes. I've never utilized them for internet, but I do know they partner with ATT to provide home internet. Not sure how it's done exactly.

Don't be scared of getting a dish on your house.

iidreamtheaterii · 06-19-2014, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skobabe8

Just from my experience, DirecTV has the best TV service, customer service and user interface (that includes Comcast). Our service gets interrupted maybe 2-4 times per year from the weather, and never more than 5-10 minutes. I've never utilized them for internet, but I do know they partner with ATT to provide home internet. Not sure how it's done exactly.

Don't be scared of getting a dish on your house.

I used to have the dish exclusively when I actually paid into television, but we "cut the chord" about 3 years ago and went the Netflix/Hulu route. I found it was much easier than I anticipated only really getting sad when Monday Night Football was on ESPN or certain NBA teams were on TNT. My wife may have another opinion due to the TLC/Bravo loss but saving close to $100/mo. was liberating.

The internet, however, is required for my plan to work... as well as after hours work when needed which is a bigger issue for me. I actually hadn't thought of the dish/internet route. It would get rather annoying to lose connectivity during storms or even heavy cloud coverage, but it sure is better than the alternative.

Anyone recommend Satellite fed internet companies to check into? Is Hughes Net still around or did acquisitions over the years absorb it?

datawater · 07-10-2014, 11:34 AM

Have you had any luck with this? I'm having the same issue.

iidreamtheaterii · 07-11-2014, 08:30 AM

No luck yet - I have an employee from Olthof spearheading a new service this weekend for their sales center that he's supposed to let me know how it goes. I didn't get enough information to know what service it is (dish, cable, fiber) but will post when I get the intel.

Sorry you're suffering the same, but it's nice to know I'm not alone.

Are you in Cedar Lake or another similar problem?

iidreamtheaterii · 07-11-2014, 10:25 AM

Found their solution:

Surf Air Wireless - Radio Band Internet. surfairwireless.net

This I hadn't heard of being one of the options. So option 4 it probably will be. It's still double the price I was paying with DSL, but I'm excited there's no commitment or contracts to opt out of in the event my DSL becomes available.

The 4 Mbps will be my start, seeing if the TVs and IPad and IPhone will operate simultaneously.

If you're interested, they do a referral thing. Contact me via direct message in the event you're going to head the same route.

Northwest Indiana · 07-11-2014, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iidreamtheaterii

Found their solution:

Surf Air Wireless - Radio Band Internet. surfairwireless.net

This I hadn't heard of being one of the options. So option 4 it probably will be. It's still double the price I was paying with DSL, but I'm excited there's no commitment or contracts to opt out of in the event my DSL becomes available.

The 4 Mbps will be my start, seeing if the TVs and IPad and IPhone will operate simultaneously.

If you're interested, they do a referral thing. Contact me via direct message in the event you're going to head the same route.

I was gonna say "hey, how about Airbaud?" but then i realized they changed the name to surf air! I remember when they did a demonstration in our neighborhood about 7-8 years ago and some people got it. However, Comcast was still much better then so a lot of people stayed with them.

iidreamtheaterii · 07-11-2014, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Northwest Indiana

I was gonna say "hey, how about Airbaud?" but then i realized they changed the name to surf air! I remember when they did a demonstration in our neighborhood about 7-8 years ago and some people got it. However, Comcast was still much better then so a lot of people stayed with them.

I totally agree. For the price, I'd easily stay with the speeds of cable for the price I'm going to be paying. However, without a choice, I'll hopefully be in action as of next Friday (service ordered).

Hope this post helps others looking for a solution, and I'll update after I use it for awhile.

iidreamtheaterii · 07-17-2014, 08:01 AM

It turns out my perseverance has paid off: AT&T will now be servicing my address with DSL.

I'm not entirely sure if it was my weekly badgering and inquiring or it simply needed to become available in their system after my address was registered with the local municipality (911, Utility, etc.) before they were able to pick up on my address. This is rather frustrating as a new home buildee to break up the lifestyle for a time. And of course they're still going to attempt to charge me a new connection fee, which I will be fighting tooth and nail not to pay.

I hope the SurfAir Wireless works for anyone not able to obtain their preferred data service, however this guy will maintain his cheaper, more reliable DSL for now.

Happy Posting.

iidreamtheaterii · 07-22-2014, 02:36 PM

Ha... very funny internet.

As much as the SurfAir Wireless tried to be the end all be all to my predicament, sure enough I have struck out in my quest for my internet capabilities. Radio Towers apparently are problematic with the line of sight issues as well, only these aren't looking into outer space; they're pointed at low antennae. Therefore, overgrowth of trees even with a brand new subdivision that have no trees in the way still won't work at my current new address.

I believe I have given up hope to my Television Cut/Streaming enabled solution until AT&T throws me a bone and actually adds the fiber I'm in need of. MiFi streaming would simply blow out any affordable data plan I could come up with, and without any other 'unlimited' options I'm SOL.

Well played Internet. I believe I'm conceding.