While more than 210,000 Iowans have been angrily waiting for Mediacom’s major network shutdown last week, my home office has been in trouble for three weeks. fed up with that other provider. You know who it is, of course, because most of Des Moines has only two options.
When CenturyLink said we would improve a relationship on June 30th or lose service, I actually bought it and saw if we could find a better one elsewhere for a high -level relationship. Soon, though, one I learned that my community didn’t have was Metronet, a high -end supplier that moved to one of the towns. (There are some satellites and phone providers.)
I arranged an appointment with CenturyLink for the introduction, which resulted in three days of lockout. As everyone knows, you have an eight -hour window for a service phone. The applicant did not arrive until noon two days after the scheduled date. When he left, we had internet service – a very slow service that most of our house could no longer afford.
Then began the hours and hours of waiting time associated with talking to a man with a hilariously professional profession called “service delivery”. Their main service is to hold customers for hours, then transfer them to a voice dial.
One “service provider” idea is that we’re going to buy a signal enhancer, we don’t need more than their “enhancer.” In the end, a “sales service” representative decided we needed a new modem, which we received from a local delivery service a few days later.
When that modem didn’t work, my husband went back to the phone purgatory process and got a third new modem – as well as a new configuration option. Now, the modems are enough to start our own network service, at least for the community.
The latest modem is not unlocked. After a week or so of house arrest had been made by other options, the new caretaker arrived last Tuesday. He said there was nothing wrong with the modem. That’s all the “sales service” has to tell everyone, he said. In fact, the fiber connection was misplaced.
Our small advertising room has an office where I can go to do some work when our website went down last week at home. I say “on purpose” because the wifi in the office is from Mediacom, which is down.
I have a “hot spot” website on my phone, so I can edit and send reports to the Iowa Capital Dispatch. I paid a lot for it through a high -quality service plan, but it turned out to be a lifesaver. After the derecho storm in August 2020, most of our staff joined the office to use my phone’s internet connection. He seems to be the only person with a role in one of those live movies. (You can stream one if you have internet service.)
However, I am aware of the initial rumors on social media about the demise of Mediacom. It can be costly to spend time on business and hurt others. Everyone hates web servers and we know why. What do our policy makers do about it?
As taxpayers, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars in Iowa alone to increase broadband service to underserved, mostly rural areas of the state. Iowa has spent $ 880 million over the past three years to expand broadband, and more money from the federal government.
Yes for most of us it is important. But the state did not say there was a lack of competition in the cities, where the majority of the demand was received. When West Des Moines decided to help Google Fiber get started, the city ended up paying Mediacom $ 600,000 to resolve a lawsuit and give the company parts of the fiber network it owns. city.
The state of Iowa is better off building a fiber optic network for the government – and taxpayers have paid the price for higher education. For years, lawyers have focused on trying to dump the site, only to teach the state that it will lose most of its investment in a sale. But the system has completed a large, multiyear 100GB expansion and now provides service not only to state offices and schools but also to public safety agencies and health care providers.
It is not a response to the needs of Iowa consumers. Most of us don’t want the internet for the government if it is available. Some have considered the regulation of broadband providers as a necessity, because the public wants reliable, affordable, secure service. I don’t know if that’s the answer, as it’s worth discussing. Or a way to help and guide cities like West Des Moines whose residents want to increase competition and choices among service providers.
Given the hundreds of millions of tax dollars to build service in a few parts of the state, lawyers may be able to set aside some money to learn how to improve broadband service for each.
Now, my new hobby for the future is booking and returning more modems so I don’t get paid for them. Customer Service wants to get them back to the wrong people.