Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

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Jizaboz
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Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Jizaboz »

As the title says. I have had my gripes with them back home but here at my place by the water it is unbelievable.

- First got internet here about 6 years ago so I could work from here and sometimes stream tv or movies. It worked for a few months if that then quit.

- The following year it goes out again and a guy explains the local network sucks and installs a booster to squeeze in a signal

- The following year it goes out again. Can’t recall what it was that time but after a tech or 2 is called it works again

- The following year it goes out again. This time, it magically comes back in the morning.

- Last year it goes out again. Partly because of hurricane damage though. They ran a new line from the outside tap all the way to the outlet in my trailer. Worked great after that.. then in early October I cancelled the service until the next season.

- This year I couldn’t come out in April due to virus, and didn’t need Internet last month. Today I hook up a brand new isp-certified Motorola modem/router and call em up to re-activate. Modem never activated. Call em back.

The guy tells me that for this area the quickest appointment time is June the 20th. Today is the 8th. The guy says “yeah that is unacceptable. I’m escalating this.”

I may get a call about a tech coming out tomorrow they say. If not, well I sure as shit won’t drive 4 hours back out here to wait for a tech on the 20th. Just fucking pathetic.
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Tdarcos
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Tdarcos »

Well, Newport is a small town and probably rural. Carteret County is not very large and appears to be a peninsula, so you don't get much benefit from "bleed over" of service from any neighboring county. When you leave, your town will be down to 4,509 people. The entire county only has 66,469 people, and the largest town in your county has only 8,661. In Prince George's County, Maryland, for example, Hyattsville has 1/4 the land area at 2.8 square miles vs. 7.7 for Newport, and yet Hyattsville has 18,230 people. So it's more expensive to provide service to Newport and requires more effort than in compact, urban areas. So either your ISP is very small or covers a much larger area.
Evil cannot create anything new
They can only corrupt and ruin
What good forces have invented or made.
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Jizaboz
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Jizaboz »

You are correct, sir. The area is all swamp basically until you are right by the ocean or by the Bogue Sound where I am. The biggest city is about 2 hours drive away.

I spoke to a nice lady in Greensboro ironically over support phone this morning. She agreed to just get a tech to check everything outside and confirm a signal and explained that now I can check my signal from my real house 4 hours away to confirm if it is working and complain if it is not. She was cool. The connection is not.
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Jizaboz
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Jizaboz »

Tech came out yesterday. Surprise, the line had been cut by people doing another job. Could have been fixed weeks before this poor dude Jessie had to fix my shit in a storm but nooo even with proper account notes the stupid fucks didn’t check the line strength outside the house as they agreed to.

Whatever. It works great now. Let’s just hope they don’t fuck up replacing the temp cable he ran with a buried one.
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Tdarcos
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Tdarcos »

Jizaboz wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:08 am Let’s just hope they don’t fuck up replacing the temp cable he ran with a buried one.
Not sure if you mean you expect them to install a permanent underground cable and don't know if they will, or figure they'll decide to move the connection to underground and won't do a good job.

Unless there are horrible environmental conditions or the residents are rich fucks who can demand cable be buried and are willing to see much higher bills for service, I would expect a wire or cable to be on utility poles. Pole-mounted wire is much cheaper than buried cable, and much easier to tap when adding a new connection.
Evil cannot create anything new
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Jizaboz
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Jizaboz »

Tdarcos wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:58 am
Jizaboz wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:08 am Let’s just hope they don’t fuck up replacing the temp cable he ran with a buried one.
Not sure if you mean you expect them to install a permanent underground cable and don't know if they will, or figure they'll decide to move the connection to underground and won't do a good job.

Unless there are horrible environmental conditions or the residents are rich fucks who can demand cable be buried and are willing to see much higher bills for service, I would expect a wire or cable to be on utility poles. Pole-mounted wire is much cheaper than buried cable, and much easier to tap when adding a new connection.
This is a trailer park that is often hit by hurricanes. There is a pole right next to my place but the "tap" where the coax is linked into my place does not have a direct line of sight to the pole. But yeah I personally did not demand anything. I just wanted my internet to work and the dude mentioned the new line is a bright orange temp one that will later be buried.
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Tdarcos
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Tdarcos »

The burying of cable because of frequent hurricanes falls under the "horrible environmental conditions" exception to running cable on poles.
Evil cannot create anything new
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by pinback »

Tdarcos wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:57 am The burying of cable because of frequent hurricanes
...usually results in a lot of babies nine months after the storm.

Heyoooo!
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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Jizaboz
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Re: Spectrum in Newport, NC is awful

Post by Jizaboz »

Yesterday I get out here with a brand new Westinghouse 24 inch Roku TV. Set it up. Has a hard time connecting to WiFi. Whatever. Get that sorted and this fucking thing will not update. Reboot tv. Reboot router. Try over and over. Started watching a show on my laptop before my GF started complaining.

Then after some more troubleshooting I remember.. for some reason the DNS servers provided by the ISP are ass and I had to manually change them on my devices to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (Google). When you first connect to the internet without doing this and open a web browser it opens an agreement page like you aren’t at home but rather in a fucking hotel or McDonalds. And when you hit agree most of the time it won’t connect anyway. Garbage.

This shit wasted 3 hours or more of my time. Once I configured the router to force custom DNS server ips on any new device the TV quickly updated and worked. (Can not change dns on this cheap Roku tv) Countless people who don’t know shit about networking are probably returning devices because of this sort of thing.
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