From: “IBEC Customer Service”
Date: March 27, 2009 5:43:34 PM EDT
To: “info”
Subject: Martins Store Broadband over Powerline Update March 27, 2009
Martins Store Substation BPL Update
March 27, 2009
The crews finished the Woodsmill 1 headend with the exception of 3 units this week. They also began hanging the CAUs for those that were late sign-ups. All units have been hung on Afton headends 1, 2 and 3 and Woodsmill headends 1 and 2.
Work continued this week on optimizing the networks that are complete with significant progress being made on all networks. IBEC has continued to turn on customers as their area of the network is brought on line. The number of regenerator units to which we have access increased by 72% and the number of CAUs by over 100%. The number of customers online increased by 60%.
Next week the crews will hang the last three units on Woodsmill 1 and that headend will be added to the headends we are optimizing. They will then begin to hang the remaining units on the Nellysford headend. There will also still be two crews doing work needed to optimize the headends already online. We will continue to contact customers as we believe their service should be available. Our Field Technician will continue to be available for in home appointments with any customer who needs help getting their modem connected properly.
If you receive a call from IBEC please return the call so that we can get you BPL service running.
If you are contacted by IBEC by telephone, please get back in touch with us, so that we can activate your modem and ensure that you have an optimized configuration. at 888-IBEC-BPL or 888-423-2275. We have had many good reports from people whose service has been activated in the past few weeks and hope that others will send their comments to service@ibec.net.
Thanks again for your patience,
IBEC Customer Service
It’s all mumbo jumbo if you don’t know “woodsmill 1” from “afton 2” from “toxic assets.” A map of the coverage would be nice for the graphically oriented like me. Does all this mean they are getting closer to MY house? This qualifies as WAY more than “patience” in my book.
Greg, we agree.
Regular folks have no clue what a CAU or headend mean. Speak in common language and forget the 50 cent words, as we said back in Tennessee….
I have lots of new information to post soon form a recent meeting with one of IBEC’s owners and a visit just this Friday from one of their field reps…..
More as soon as I can post. -T-
I would like to say that I tried to call the number above this morning and either everyone is calling at the same time or they do not have more then one phone line. It was busy! I can’t believe this. I believe I may have to do what Tommy did and send it back to get connected. Ha Ha. I am just trying to figure out how they go about hooking people up. Is it by Pole Number? Street location? Farthest to closet? I would just like to know something because so far the customer service I am receiving is minuscule but closer to obsolete.
I still receive those emails — thought I was the only one not understanding the techno-speak!
From what I was told, I think River View Lane is in “Woods Mill 1” but I really couldn’t tell be reading the past emails. I had asked them. In fact, I think it was the non-answer I received that convinced me to send the modem back.
I am happily using my nTelos Air Card! Customer service has improved dramatically.
I spent about 15 minutes late last week on the phone with IBEC Customer Service trying to find out the status of my BPL unit. The Customer Service Agent had no information specific to my unit. He said he thought my CAU was hung but there were problems on the line somewhere so they couldn’t activate my unit until the the problems were fixed. He couldn’t tell me the nature of the problem or when it might be resolved.
The Customer Service Agent was very apologetic. He told me they were no longer allowed to say that they would call anyone back for a follow-up or give estimated times of resolution because customers were getting angry when they weren’t called back or the times weren’t met and were lodging complaints with IBEC. (Gee imagine that!). The Customer Service Agents seem to be working in the blind.
I have no idea what the status of my unit is or if I’m in Afton 1,2,3 or somewhere else in the network.
I’m getting conflicting information from IBEC regarding whether a Customer Access Unit is hung on the pole outside my house. According to the latest email, 100% of CAUs on our circuit have been hung, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary…
I called IBEC last Friday I was told that a unit was hung at my house, and they had been trying to call me. But after calling again Saturday (and speaking, I believe, to the same rep), they took my info, said the circuit I’m on is wrapping up, and they would call me back… hmm… maybe my unit hasn’t been hung yet after all. I agree with C.R., it does seem like the reps are working somewhat in the blind.
Does anyone have a picture of a CAU? Just curious what I should look for. Also, when IBEC calls, what is the number that shows up in Caller ID?
Thanks!
Hi jljpb,
We spoke to IBEC field reps today and conveyed your concerns, they said if they knew who you were they could come right out and troubleshoot your problem/concerns. If you don’t want to post that information in a reply comment here, just give IBEC a buzz on their customer service line and tell them to have Lynn come by your location. She is very friendly and very, very helpful in resolving the issues. IBEC was slow in getting some of this cleared early on, but see to have a second wind and are doing a good job in getting folks up and running! -T-
just to let you all know, IBEC has asked me to “test out the service” for them. They had one of their engineers come by and bring me a new modem. I received it as planned. However, when I hooked it up, there were problems. Technical support did not know why the connection was not working. The last I heard was that they were forwarding the problem to their engineers and they would get back with me. So far, I’ve heard nothing…I will keep you all posted. I think it’s only fair that my testing results be posted here as well as for the IBEC folks.
Have a wonderful week!
Tommy
Rev Thompson (Our Technology Disciple!) Thanks for the updates! We have been testing here as well for the past several days. The most recent result I have is from Tuesday evening around 6:30 PM:
Pretty good speeds for the slower tier of BPL. The promised rate is only 256K at this point so it’s pretty close.
I should have more data in a few days. I would give Lynn a call and make sure she knows your situation. She is working with many folks to get them going!
-T-
Hi NCL,
you are too funny. haha. Yes, Lynn, as well as Asa and Steve all know my situation. I just got off the phone with tech support and they have found that there is a very unique networking problem going on here in my situation. I should hear back from them in the next couple of weeks. They want to come and troubleshoot on site. We’ll see how that goes. Once I get up and running, I will give you all consistent feedback as to how the service is working as I also give the feedback to IBEC.
Thanks for the information.
Tommy
Tommy,
I’m waiting with bated breath for your post regarding your meeting with the IBEC owner and field rep!
Bob
I am on River View Ln and was told it was in Wood’s Mill 2- still no phone call or hook up 🙁
I am located on Greenfield Rd. Approx. two(2) miles east of The intersection, and approx. three(3) miles from the substation. I see the poles have the units on them but no phone calls here. I was told they start far away and work toward the substation. I would think that the people closest to the substation would have the best speeds and you would want them to be hooked up first. So that any word that gets around about the speeds, it would all be great. But who am I.
Hi Joe, We were getting 275 kbps down and 207 kbps up when I checked it last on the 31st of March. This morning we were not able to get connected at all, not sure what was going on and haven’t had time to troubleshoot it just yet. But, that’s the first time we have had any issues with the BPL connection on over a week of testing. As to the route they are taking to determine who is hooked first, I really don’t know. Hopefully someone with IBEC will see this post and chime in! – Tommy –