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Internet has been out going on two days. Went by this morning and the ATT man had a hole dug next to one of those big boxes along the road. He was in it checking lines with a meter. Looked like about a thousand or more bundled up lines. Whatever it was they got it repaired.
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16 comments

Date Votes
  • KenK/84Bravo

    I get Internet access via a 4G Verizon dedicated Samsung Galaxy SE Tablet. Sometimes reception sucks, but I will be damned if I will pay Dish, one more dime. They already overcharge me for basic TV service.

    If I can cut ties with Verizon, and keep my Tablet with Internet access, I would in a heartbeat. They are also overcharging me. Need to go check out the options. 🤔

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  • Junkballer
    Fiber optics is the trend now   :)
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  • Brookwood
    I went into a Verizon store here in town to get a protective cover for a new smart phone my son gave me for my birthday.  I thought I had entered a boutique! 

    Been playing with the new phone for about a week learning how to text along with all the other things the device offers and very slowly making progress.  I still will keep my talk only flip phone at least until I feel confident with this strange new gadget.  

    My son really wanted me to get into this century, even though I have always clawed onto the doorway post like a cat about to be put into a bathtub!     My new phone is part of his service plan 250 miles away all bought and paid for by him for unlimited use.  What else can I say!   This old cat is learning to swim and love my son to the moon and back!
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  • nmyers
    Meh, it's no more difficult than brain surgery:  "See one, do one, teach one."  I bought the book "Iphones for seniors for dummies", & pull that out when I want to learn something new.  But, if you get stuck, Google or Siri can answer most questions.  At least, now I know what the kids & grandkids are doing.  I found that the best cover/holster is the Otter Box.  Yes, AT&T & Verizon have fancy stores, with prices to match.  If you don't need hand holding, Tracfone & Consumer Cellular are about the cheapest.  For those who have a Comcast Triple Play package, they will give you a great rate:  I have 2 phones, for which I pay about $20 total per month.
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  • select-fire
    Junkballer said:
    Fiber optics is the trend now   :)

    :)
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  • hobo9650
    I've had internet problems for at least ten years.   Everyone except Hughes say they don't provide service where I live.
    Made my third trip to AT&T store to try to solve my problem.  Was told again that they didn't provide service to my home address.
    Told them I wanted a "hot spot" that will go anywhere.  They wanted $8+ per month for the unit or $217.00.   Monthly charge for internet is $60.00 and I can use almost anywhere.  Lake house, hunting club, etc, even in my truck if I use the inverter.

    Cut Hughes off.  Oh what a happy day.
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  • pulsarnc

    Regarding the fiber optics . One of my friends is the fiber optic cable guru/ splicer / fixer for ATT here . He had been with the company 40 plus years . He is the ONLY one qualified to do his job In this area . Every time he talks about retiring they throw another 15 thousand a year at him so he stays . Pretty much works at his own pace and schedule . When the fish are biting on the coast if you want him you need to go about 50 miles offshore to find him

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  • select-fire
    pulsarnc said:

    Regarding the fiber optics . One of my friends is the fiber optic cable guru/ splicer / fixer for ATT here . He had been with the company 40 plus years . He is the ONLY one qualified to do his job In this area . Every time he talks about retiring they throw another 15 thousand a year at him so he stays . Pretty much works at his own pace and schedule . When the fish are biting on the coast if you want him you need to go about 50 miles offshore to find him


    Same thing yesterday. tech shows up at the house about 4.30.. opens the box on our home and tests it. I was standing right there and told him... well hell I could have called that in and told them yesterday I already plugged the phone into it yesterday. No dial tone. No worky. He said they had to call the special guy who would show up tomorrow morning. I was out at 8.30 this morning, he was waist high in dirt .

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  • Cling2myguns
    Used to be an outside tech for CenturyLink. Could write a book about the insanity of the way things were run and the old 1950's thru 1970's cable that was being used that had been let go for decades.
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  • Cling2myguns
    Junkballer said:
    Fiber optics is the trend now   :)

    In new developments and some overlay areas. Most areas still serviced by copper.
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  • jimdeere
    “ service loop”
    There’s a term I haven’t heard for a while.
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  • select-fire
    Remembering when I plowed a field with the Allis and the phone company had ran a large and I mean large cable in the field and not in the right away of the road. They looped it out in the field about 100 yd and I got into it with the plow and pulled it out and really damaged it. They were repairing that mess for days, folks without phones. Main man came out for the phone company and couldn't say a word. His big cable was in our field in a bad way.
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  • select-fire
    At least.  I yanked that cable a good ways out of the ground until it got tight on the tension of the loop. Shut off the tractor and went to the house to explain to Grampa what his Allis had caught. He got a big laugh out of it. Wanted to take the recip chain saw and cut it ..but he didn't.
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  • pulsarnc

    If they buried it shallow enough that you hit it with a set of bottom plows they really screwed up . Totally the contractors fault .

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  • bpost
    Junkballer said:
    Fiber optics is the trend now   :)

    In new developments and some overlay areas. Most areas still serviced by copper.
    Many kinds of legacy services can't run on anything but copper (frame relay, DS-0 services).  I mean, there's ways it can be done, but it's ginormously prohibitively expensive to stand up something like a SONET ring for just a few hundred consumers.  Telcos do it for City to City networks with half a million users, but you don't see that kind of gear out in the field.  That's all Central Office stuff.  SONET is slowly being phased out now in favor of Metro-Ethernet services, but there's no migration path.  CPE has to be totally replaced on the customer end, and that doesn't happen fast when something works.  In fact, this is one of the biggest challenges Telcos face right now...all their legacy systems (still) work so well, customers avoid change.  (The ol'...if it ain't broke, don't fix it...mantra.).  Problem is, all the backend gear is all at end of life.


    We have been paying telcos sucharges since the early 1980's for fiberoptic cable.  Where are the cables?  Where is the money?  Can I stop paying for something I will never get that I should have got 30 years ago?
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  • Cling2myguns
    Junkballer said:
    Fiber optics is the trend now   :)

    In new developments and some overlay areas. Most areas still serviced by copper.
    Many kinds of legacy services can't run on anything but copper (frame relay, DS-0 services).  I mean, there's ways it can be done, but it's ginormously prohibitively expensive to stand up something like a SONET ring for just a few hundred consumers.  Telcos do it for City to City networks with half a million users, but you don't see that kind of gear out in the field.  That's all Central Office stuff.  SONET is slowly being phased out now in favor of Metro-Ethernet services, but there's no migration path.  CPE has to be totally replaced on the customer end, and that doesn't happen fast when something works.  In fact, this is one of the biggest challenges Telcos face right now...all their legacy systems (still) work so well, customers avoid change.  (The ol'...if it ain't broke, don't fix it...mantra.).  Problem is, all the backend gear is all at end of life.

    You obviously have worked for a telco, you know all the correct lingo :)
    I did 11 years with US West/Qwest/Centurylink.
    To add to your post, now they are putting CAF 2 remote dslams out in the country to serve rural customers, some fiber fed, some copper fed, but then copper to the premise. So trying to now run high speed internet on old 1950's copper that was for the most part abandoned for the last 20 years and band-aided together to keep the stalwart POTS customers up and going. I can't even describe the mess that is that old plant. And the engineers are locating the CAF boxes in some of the stupidist locations, with zero input from the local techs. Ive seen a CAF box in front yard of a home that could only serve THAT home, nothing else. If they put it a 1/4 mile away it would serve dozens. But it's Connect America Fund tax money so no one cares.

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