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UtterlyBoring.com is produced by Jake Ortman (e-mail, resume), a 30-year-old dad, percussionist, freelance Web designer, consultant and jack-of-all-trades computer geek, living in Bend, Oregon. He created this so that his expensive journalism and technology degree isn't getting totally wasted. In addition to editing this site in his free time, he is the IT Director and Ad Designer at both Sunray and Discover Sunriver. He has LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook profiles if you're trying to stalk him.
Opinions and comments on this site are the opinions of the author, not the author's employer, family, friends or pets. This site is powered by Movable Type and is hosted by orty.com. Internet connection provided by Bend BroadBand. Since December 1st, 2002, there have been 5269 entries. Visitors to this blog have posted 16543 comments. If you're reading this, you have too much time on your hands. |
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Unicom Getting Bought Out By Eschelon TelecomI know there are a few folks locally who read this site that use Unicom's services (either phone services or Internet service). We have a T1 with them at one of the offices I work at as well. And that service will soon be provided by Eschelon Telecom. Here's the press release from Eschelon, press release from Unicom, and Custom Service info from Unicom. Now Unicom bought up OneEighty back in the day. OneEighty bought out HighSpeed Communications (aka the ol' EmpireNet) and also owned OregonTrail Internet. So Eschelon now owns all these former companies and domains, too. My worry is thus: I've had less-than-stellar dealings with support at Unicom (the T1 was there before I got there), and they didn't integrate the clients they bought very well (we were former OneEighty and previously EmpireNet clients). When I call them, it always seems to take them a year and a day to bring up my account info, and when they finally do, they have to escalate my call because the person answering the phones can't help me with my usually complicated problem. They have a dedicated support line for their high-capacity lines (T1 or larger), but this wasn't brought to my attention until after many calls to them. Generally speaking, I've had to work around Unicom versus working with them (their DNS servers were caching a domain name totally wrong for example, and it was easier for me to route the office's request to different DNS servers than to deal with them). My guess is this is only going to make things worse. My question for the local community is thus: Who out there is locally-based and is provided business-class 'net access now? I know BendTel (who I use at the other Sunriver office I work at) and Bend Broadband (who I use at home) are still here and doing fine, but I think that most of the local companies that are around are local branches of larger national corporations (like Unicom) or sold out a long time ago (BendNet bought up by Rio Communications). I remember back when Dial-Up first came up here, everybody seemed to be selling it (mostly through reseller companies -- very few of them actually owned their own modem banks). But any more, it seems like everybody's who's offering DSL or Dial-Up is doing it through another company. Am I wrong on this? To throw another thing into the mix, there are a few folks who provide Internet service via Wireless (Yellow Knife, Webformix, Clearwire, among others). Am I missing somebody really obvious here? Anybody have any experiences/stories to share? Discuss... Posted by Jake on 02/19/07 @ 03:07 PM
Posted in Geekdom, Local | 12 Comments | Permalink Submit to digg, del.icio.us, reddit, or stumbleupon 12 CommentsMrs H said on 02/19/07 @ 04:45 PM:First person I called was Mr H since he was laid off from there but he didn't have any scoop. SORRY Jake said on 02/19/07 @ 04:47 PM: Mr. H knows how to get ahold of me if he hears anything (as we give them several hundred dollars a month and I want to make sure our stuff is going to work). Mrs H said on 02/19/07 @ 04:50 PM: I can agree, there customer serv is not the best. I forgot to add that. David said on 02/20/07 @ 07:34 AM: There's also Quantum Communications in Redmond. We've got servers over there and a T1 to them. Evan said on 02/21/07 @ 03:21 PM: Are we sure that BendBroadBand is still locally owned? I've noticed that the address on their bills is now somewhere in Los Angeles. Jake said on 02/21/07 @ 03:45 PM: I'm pretty sure that BendBroadband just outsources their billing/invoicing operations to an outside company (which is a smart move, really, as that stuff can be a nightmare to print/ship/etc...), but they're still owned locally. Mr D said on 03/01/07 @ 12:38 AM: I've actually heard some decent things about Eschelon. This is their biggest market and UNICOM just moved into that building. My guess is that they will keep most of the staff and things should be about the same. Quantum and Bendtel are probably the best local people. I know some of the guys at UNICOM and I they have a pretty good operation if are signing up new. The low end tech support sucks, but they have some pretty smart network guys. Dude said on 03/01/07 @ 08:04 AM: BendBroadband is not owned locally owned. Never has been. Jake said on 03/01/07 @ 09:32 AM: I agree with you there, Mr. D: Unicom's low-end tech guys are mostly worthless, but once you actually get to somebody on the high-end (which can be a chore), they're helpful Mr D said on 03/01/07 @ 10:16 AM: BendBroadband is controlled by the daughter of the previous controller. This just happened about 6-7 months ago. They were under contract to provide UNICOM fiber service and backed out days before delivery after she found out they were selling to the competition. They also lied to UNICOM as to why they were backing out. Pretty lame. Eric said on 03/05/07 @ 09:16 AM: BendBroadband is locally owned, has been since 1956. Ms. Tykeson has been the President and CEO much longer than 6-7 months. Mr. D, sounds like you either work for Unicom or received some biased information from someone that works there. Mr D said on 03/05/07 @ 02:05 PM: I had first hand experience with this fiber installation. After it fell through, I was fairly burnt. Everyone has their issues, but what they did was wrong. Of course, who do I use for broadband at my house. BB =) Post a comment |
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