Home » Internet » Recent Articles:

Altice USA’s Optimum Selling Gigabit Service for $45 a Month… With a $200 Prepaid Visa Card

Altice USA is pushing hard to grab market share away from Verizon FiOS — its biggest competitor in the northeastern U.S., with a new customer promotion that offers a year of gigabit broadband speed for $45/month, as well as a $200 prepaid Visa gift card just for signing up.

To qualify for this rate, you must be a new Altice customer (or a customer that disconnected Altice service for at least 30 days). To get the gift card, you must be a new customer and have not received an earlier gift card from Altice in the last 12 months. This offer is good for residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

The Bill Breakdown:

  • $50/mo for 1 gigabit service (up to 940 Mbps download/up to 50 Mbps upload) + $5/mo discount for signing up for paperless billing and autopay (total equals $45/mo)
  • $10/mo optional gateway modem/router rental fee
  • $3.50/mo mandatory “Network Enhancement Fee”
  • Your out the door price is $58.50/mo if you use their gateway, $48.50/mo if you bring your own.

Customers can also choose a 500 Mbps tier for $35 a month with similar fees.

If you sign up, you will also be offered the option of multiple TV packages, including a Basic TV package of 50 channels for $15/mo or a Core TV package of 210 channels for $25/mo. Home phone service is also available in this promotion for $10/mo. A bundle including gigabit internet, Core TV and home phone service is priced at $80/mo. There is no installation fee for customers that can manage their own inside wiring if needed.

Idaho Students Harmed by Unreliable Broadband; State Senator Wants Internet to Be Public Utility

Phillip Dampier April 29, 2020 Community Networks, Public Policy & Gov't, Rural Broadband Comments Off on Idaho Students Harmed by Unreliable Broadband; State Senator Wants Internet to Be Public Utility

Sen. Nelson

Idaho internet access is inadequate to support tele-learning services, hurting the state’s ability to move towards online education as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

State Sen. David Nelson (D-Boise) told his constituents that “now, more than ever, Idahoans need reliable broadband.”

At the moment, they are not getting it.

Nelson:

“The Moscow School District is providing instruction online for middle and high school students but about 20% of students don’t have strong enough Wi-Fi or can’t afford the internet access needed for classes at home. To make online learning available to all students, Moscow School District has turned school parking lots into Wi-Fi hot spots and is providing wireless hot spots to some students. In the Potlatch School District, they have distributed 300 laptops and Chromebooks, but 20% of kids don’t have internet access. Potlatch is also creating Wi-Fi hot spots for some families.

“In mountainous Benewah County, St. Maries School District has a harder job. Cell service is spotty and line-of-sight internet connections are hard to come by. More than 70% of St. Maries students and teachers do not have access to reliable internet. The school district found they must send home weekly packets because they cannot do online instruction. St. Maries teachers work in their classrooms daily because neither they nor their students have reliable internet for online teaching. Instead, the teachers spend their time creating the paper worksheets for families to pick up.

“St. Maries students only get packets, while other schools teach online. Does that live up to Idaho’s constitutional requirement of a general, uniform, and thorough system of public, free common schools? Idaho needs more investment in broadband infrastructure, but we aren’t going to be able to fix this in the midst of a crisis. I wish we had been investing in broadband infrastructure instead of cutting taxes significantly when times were good.

“Our limited, unreliable broadband is often overtaxed. Internet that was already struggling to serve our communities is now unable to keep up with the unprecedented demand from educators, people working from home, families ordering groceries online, and nearly every other Idahoan using the web to stay connected. Even the time to clear a credit card payment at a grocery store has increased.”

Internet access in rural states like Idaho is mostly a mixture of cable internet in larger cities and towns and DSL service in suburban areas. Rural communities often have to rely on wireless internet, where available, or satellite internet access. A few communities have a co-op utility that doubles as a broadband provider, but in most cases rural Idaho only gets what CenturyLink, Frontier, and other telephone companies are willing to provide.

“Last year, the governor’s Broadband Task Force found that North Central Idaho has the least access to functional broadband in the state,” Nelson noted. “Since schools have closed due to coronavirus, North Idaho school districts are experiencing the consequences of Idaho’s lack of investment in broadband infrastructure.”

After years of trying to convince private telecom companies to do the right thing by their customers and expand internet access, Nelson points out the current COVID-19 crisis is a perfect example of why states like Idaho can no longer afford to wait.

“The coronavirus pandemic has made it more obvious than ever that reliable internet access is a public utility that all Idahoans need,” Nelson said.

Results of Special Audit of Frontier in West Virginia Due Next Month As Thousands of Complaints Pour In

Phillip Dampier February 13, 2020 Consumer News, Frontier, Public Policy & Gov't, Rural Broadband, Video Comments Off on Results of Special Audit of Frontier in West Virginia Due Next Month As Thousands of Complaints Pour In

In West Virginia, thousands of complaints are rolling into the Public Service Commission regarding Frontier’s deteriorating phone and internet service. As the problems get worse, an ongoing state audit is documenting problems at Frontier as the state decides what it can do next. WCHS in Charleston reports that many West Virginians have only one choice for phone and internet service. (5:59)

Antietam Broadband Under “Concerted Attack” to Bring Provider Down; Months of Outages Annoy Customers

Phillip Dampier June 5, 2019 Antietam Broadband, Consumer News, Video Comments Off on Antietam Broadband Under “Concerted Attack” to Bring Provider Down; Months of Outages Annoy Customers

For two months, Hagerstown, Md.-based Antietam Broadband, an independent cable company serving Washington County, has been facing an organized effort to bring its broadband business to its knees.

A series of prolonged service outages that the cable company characterized as a “multi-pronged concerted attack” affected both internet and voice service for 40-50% of its customers. A “malicious and targeted attack outside of our network” caused connections to slow, and in many cases stop, the company admitted. The attack flooded the company’s service delivery network with “more than one million malicious hits against our network every 5 minutes,” according to Antietam Broadband president Brian Lynch.

As a result, some customers have been without stable service for over a week at a time, and with the attacks continuing for at least two months, many are growing increasingly frustrated by the repeated outages.

“It has come on for an hour and then gone down again,” said Barbara Ewald of Hagerstown, telling the Herald-Media it was her 11th day of problems with her internet service. “I can’t keep crawling around to reset it. I’m not going to try to set it. It’s not my responsibility. We deserve better than this.”

Other customers have experienced outages up to a dozen times a day, depending on how sustained the attacks are on Antietam’s network.

Letter from Brian Lynch, President of Antietam Broadband.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Lynch said. “There’s an entity trying to interrupt communication. The way they’re doing it is very unique; it’s multi-pronged.”

Evidently not a traditional denial-of-service-disruption, Lynch won’t go into much detail about the exact nature of the attack, except to say it targets the company’s cable modems which manage voice and data service.

A recent public meeting at the Washington County Free Library attracted at least 80 local residents to complain about the state of Antietam’s service.

Penny Wolters of Hagerstown told the audience her son was unable to complete a college assignment in time and some of her bills were paid late because of the ongoing service disruptions. Other subscribers who telecommute or operate in-home businesses had to leave Antietam’s service area to find a reliable connection. Calls to customer service were met “with rudeness” according to several complaining customers. A representative told one customer she should be grateful the company offered her any service credit for an outage that had been a problem for over six weeks.

Even with the help of Cable Labs, CommScope/ARRIS and Zcorum, and security experts from around the country, the attacks continued, although they seem to be ebbing. But after two months dealing with the problem, a local grassroots group, “More Cable Options for Hagerstown” launched to find alternatives for Antietam.

“My goal is to give the citizens of Washington County a platform to discuss their frustration with Antietam Broadband,” organizer Cherish Marriott told the newspaper. “I’d also like to give them the tools and information on how to bring other service providers to the area.”

For Lynch, the priority has become repairing the damage to the company’s reputation.

“We want to personally apologize to our customers for the disruption and frustration these past weeks have caused in your life,” Lynch wrote on the company’s Facebook page. “We recognize the internet and phone services we provide are of the utmost importance to you. We would like to thank you for the support and patience you have shown us during this challenging time.”

WDVM in Hagerstown reports on the service outage issues that began in April. Hagerstown’s mayor wonders why the city apologized for the cable company’s problems. (1:31)

To address customer concerns, Antietam provided this recent update to customers:

  • “We have gone two weeks since the last event. We believe that the measures we’ve taken have been effective, and we are closely watching our network in case the attackers try again.”
  • “We are increasing the credit to residential customers from two to three weeks. Credits will be automatically placed on your bill. If you previously received two weeks of credit, on your next bill you will see the additional week of credit. These additional credits will include leased modems and/or routers provided by Antietam.”
  • “We have seen no evidence that the attackers had access to any customer data stored on our systems.”
  • “We will continue to stress test our networks to provide every safeguard available against further cyberattacks.”

Local organizers meet to discuss ongoing problems with Antietam Broadband and what alternatives exist. WDVM reports. (2:00)

Irony Dept.: Frontier Paying $1,000 to Someone Willing to Live With Obsolete Flip-Phone for a Week

Frontier Communications will pay one smartphone addict $1,000 if they will give up their device for one week and rely on a 1990s-era obsolete flip phone instead. The cringe worthy challenge, soaked in irony, is brought to you by a phone company that delivers late 1990s-era DSL to a substantial number of its customers.

Frontier:

If you’re chosen, you’ll be responsible for using a flip phone in place of your smartphone for seven full days (that’s 168 hours!), and we want you to log your experience. We’ll have you track (don’t worry, your info stays safe with us!) how long it takes you to do basic tasks such as texting and checking email, how many times you wish you could Google something, how many hours you slept, how your productivity changed (or didn’t!), and even if you were late to appointments (after all, how does anyone get around without Google Maps?). Was your experience #TheWorstThingEver? Did you find new freedom? Either way, we want to hear about it.

Applicants can register until July 8, 2019. 

What’s in it for you

$1,000 in compensation

Boredom Buster Swag Bag (i.e. your survival kit) including:

  • An actual, physical map (yes, those still exist!) to make up for your GPS.
  • A pocket phonebook, because who memorizes numbers anymore?
  • A notepad and pen to make grocery trips a little less painful.
  • A couple ’90s CDs (think Britney and NSYNC) to soothe your Spotify withdrawals.
  • Remote work environment as you earn your $1,000—no heading to an office at 8am for this job!
  • No drug testing or background check required.
  • A unique social experiment and a chance to go back in time . . . or, well, something like that.

The goal of the experiment is “to help us understand how much we rely on smartphones and how that affects day-to-day life. (Our hypothesis? A lot.)”

It is too bad Frontier didn’t embark on an experiment to determine how much customers rely on high quality, 21st century internet access. They could quickly learn that for many of those stuck with Frontier’s DSL service… they can’t, because Frontier does not provide it.

Search This Site:

Contributions:

Recent Comments:

Your Account:

Stop the Cap!