Anyone knows more about Jetbroadband/Suddelink deal? (Norfolk, Roanoke: sales, real estate)

[pmgeek]

I read that JetBroadband has acquired Suddenlink cable services for some areas in South West Virginia.

I live in the Franklin County portion that "has no tv-cable service at all but it should have" as per Franklin County and Charter Cable agreement. The latter should have provided us with service since several years back but they never did. Then Suddenlink cames along buys Charter's cable systems and its obligations but the situation did not change concerning cable tv service.

Now Jetbroadband purchased Suddelink. I wonder if anyone knows if Jetbroadband contract deals with providing service to rural areas. We are at a time that Verizon's phone lines from the 60's with 26K dial-up and rabbit years do not help real estate sales and business in this county.

Folks on the other side of the Roanoke River are much better off (i.e. Botetourt). Go figure...

[seanpecor]

Are you in line-of-sight of any hills (i.e., Grassy Hill)? If so you may be able to get B2XOnline.com's fixed wireless broadband. I live in Franklin County also and I've had the B2X service for over a year now. It's about 1.5Mbps bidirectionally and is incredibly reliable.

Sean

[pmgeek]

Hi and thanks for the reply. I have Lynnville mountain not in line of sight.

B2X has been here and done all sorts of tests but unfortunately the signal does not go through rock and dirt. My property is on a heavily wooded hill which blocks the signal from Lynnville Mt.

I would need to borrow a neighbor's roof to get service. An although B2X said I could share signal with that neighbor the company has not replied to my request to have my repeater on his roof instead of 250ft of cable running through 2 properties and a vacant lot. Better than that would be to have an antenna on the other margin of the Roanoke River, on Bedford side & Norfolk Southern land, which is in line of sight... but we know that's not going to happen.

The bottom line is that B2X is the 2nd best solution. Cable would really solve my problems and most of my neighbors needs. A simple B/C analysis shows that my costs would be cut in half!

I have Direct TV. I receive only the East Coast channels in the $80/mo service, and no local channels (due to low 119 satelite location). I have Verizon Wireless EVDO card for internet service ($60/mo) which does not run on Broadband signal yet. Thus it is just a decent dial-up. Add to that the "prime quality from 1960" Verizon landline ($50/mo) and we have a floor cost of $190 and sub-par benefits.

If Comcast were available I would receive 100% of the cable channels including local channels, not deal with growing leaves, clouds or snow blocking my signal. I could also subscribe for broadband internet and VOIP services. The costs based on current Comcast's promotion for the three services is $99!!!

It is just NOT funny.

[Home4UnROA]

If you are in the Route 116 area, you might try InHardy.com. We are on Windy Gap and have had this service for about a year. It works well and is a relief from dial-up-hell.

[seanpecor]

I hear ya. From a business perspective I'd sooner go back to paying $800/mo for my old T1 than do cable again as my ISP. The downtime was just not acceptable. 15 minutes lost here, 10 minutes lost there, it drove me batty. I had the same reliability issue in three states and I suspect it hasn't gotten better. My B2X setup hasn't cost me a bit of downtime in over a year. It's been the most reliable service to date. I pay $150/mo for a ridiculous amount of bandwidth given than I pull huge (3gb) backups down from Jersey nightly. Regular rate is something like $50.

For most folks cable internet is awesome and here is to hoping you get some cable soon! I hope you've called some folks at the county to let them know your situation. I'd even head to the next meeting and see if you can squeeze it onto the agenda.

I've got a Verizon HTC smartphone with EVDO. An article in the Roanoke Times yesterday suggests VCAST/EVDO is coming to Roanoke (finally) later this year.

Personally I prefer Dish Network over Direct TV. I've got more HD channels then I know what to do with and Dish Networks' HD-DVR is really really nice.

I still have my old DirecPC/Direcway equipment if you wanted to go that route. I had it installed back in late 2005. Six months later I had switched to B2X. The latency sucks but its better than dialup.

Sean

[netyron]

verizon sometime within the next 30 days will be offering broadband service to the hardy,va area per their representative
if you have verizon phone service, verizon cell service, and direct tv you will be able to bundle all 3 or partial bundle cheaper than what you are paying for those services
i currently have verizon cell, phone, and direct tv when broadband comes i was quoted a bundled price of about 50 to 60 dollars a month cheaper than i am currently paying, and i can get it even cheaper when broadband comes

news flash: direct tv has been working sometime on offering broadband over power line service in the us it is called BPL thru CURRENT TECHNOLOGIES out of germantown, md they will be starting this service in the Dallas-Ft Worth areas
this new technology uses your existing power lines to bring broadband service to you
google and some big companies have already invested heavily in this new system
currently most high speed internet services only offer fast download speeds, but BPL has upload speeds 25 times faster than other high speed internet services and 75 times faster than dial up speeds

go to web site currentgroup.com

or currentcommunications.com

but wait the verizon coming to hardy,va in next 30 days for broadband is the best deal yet since we are in a dead zone for fast high speed service and the verizon deal of bundling services is even better deal

[pmgeek]

UPDATE AND SUMMARY
Thank you all for the interest in this thread. Since last July here are the list of new events:
- CABLE: Jetbroadband is currently working on the cable lines in the Edwardsville area. So it is probably a year away until they reach Coopers Cove/Lakeshore Terrace area. One thing that is different in the franchise contract with the county is cost-sharing in the event there are unexpected amount of rock. Since rocks abund here in Franklin county we will probably have to pay some extra for digging.
Concerning JetBroadband service, I have spoken to a handfull of users of their services and asked them to compare to Suddenlink's. These folks have reported being pleased and a more reponsive customer services. So, some more waiting from our part.
-Wired Broadband - DSL : While speaking to Verizon about my phone service I was very lucky to have this local, very knowledgeable and well connected local representative. The news was that Verizon is bringing DSL service to Hardy and Callaway, among other rural areas. The service was about to go live on October 31 but it is facing some delay. I do not have information about the packages that are going to be available to us but it is posted on their website it is a very affordable broadband service. Can't wait! So whenever you are on Verizon.com please keep on looking for broadband service availability and entering your email address. Let's keep up with the message that we are interested in this service. It seems it will be the most affordable
- Wireless Broadband - B2X: The poster child of a first mover in a new market, B2X got many subscribers around here. A number of neighbors were able to sign up with them. Most report that the service is reliable and fast. Few report glitches and downtime. Some still cannot get service due to topographic conditions that block the signal (rock, mounts, thick woods or metal buildings). So this group is patiently waiting for cable or dsl...
-Wireless Broadband - EVDO: Verizon Wireless' NationalAccess internet service has been working better. I do not know many people who has this service other than myself and one neighbor. After last summer's Roanoke Times article about the broadband services coming to this area by the end of the year we have all been waiting for it. I started to hea more about the upcoming service at the Verizon store downtown Roanoke when I got my broadband enabled TREO. The service is highly portable (works wherever you have Verizon service in the country), reliable, but unfortunately costly ($60/mo depending on your plan). In DC the service is super fast. Here it beats dial up at about 4X the speed but it is still a dial-up service on a cell phone line. No one was able to give me a date for the broadband service start, so we are patiently waiting upgrade of the towers around here.

I'll keep you all posted when I hear more. Keep the postings coming if you hear something different or more details on any of the services above.