A couple local readers send in these rants about local TV and local TV companies. Discuss/comment below.
Charlie send this in about Bend Broadband’s newest service:
Today, being 10/7 I talked to a sales assistant at bendbraodband requesting that my silver package be bumped from 12 Mbps to the new offered 14 Mbps, seeing that it is “a free upgrade.” Thats completely false. In order to upgrade they require you to buy a DOCSIS 3.0 even though a 2.0 can more than handle it. They’re old Gold tier was 16Mbps. It makes no sense. The new modem is 79.00 outright. More BBB BS.
And Rod has a beef with how NFL Games are broadcast.
So the local Fox Station that is “Serving” Central has selected Seattle and Dallas as our local teams to show. As a 49er fan, I would love to watch a few games on TV. Yes, Bend broadband sucks, but dish sucks worse, as I’m sure you would agree.
To see how absurd this is, look at the broadcast map for NFL week 5: http://the506.com/nflmaps/ .
WTF? Can something be done?
I don’t watch much NFL as I’m generally at the office on Sundays, but that URL is indeed interesting. Thanks for that, Rod.
Discuss.
Comments
There appears to be some confusion. The increase in speed for the Silver plan does not require a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. All Silver customers will automatically receive the increase. Gold plan customers will need to purchased a 3.0 modem to be bumped up to the new speed and of course the new Platinum plan at 60Mbps does require a 3.0 modem. If Charlie was misinformed by a customer care rep, I apologize. I’ll double check to make sure our call center is giving out the correct information.
The person I talked to using the live chat feature explicitly told my I couldn’t receive the 14Mbps upgrade without buying the new modem. I went over it again and again with him, and was he made it very clear. I then sent an email in asking why in the hell this was, where I was told that the upgrade was in fact free. I thought OK, now I just have to wait for them to roll it out to the customers, do a quick modem reset, and receive my new speed.
After a few days of waking up in the morning, resetting my router then testing my speed, I figured that I should try live chat again and ask if there was some sort of delay. All of the speedtest results I was getting, including the test to the Bendbroadband speedtest, were still coming up around 12Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up.
So I went on live chat once more and inquired about it. To my surprise I was told I was on the new 14Mbps plan. I asked if he was sure and he said that he was. I accepted it and thanked him, then did another modem reset to confirm. Another speedtest, and I still didn’t break over 12Mbps. Hmm.
Here is where the problem lies:
About a month ago, when I was told my connection was capped at 12Mbps downstream and 1.5Mbps upstream I got these results from the speedtest.net server in Corvallis, which I find to be the fastest to test from:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/566458608.png (note the date)
Now that I’m told my connection is capped at 14Mbps downsteam and 1.5Mbps up, these are the results I get:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/589418074.png (note the date)
Unless the line quality BendBroadband offers has decreased by 15 percent in one week, I do not think that the cap has been implemented correctly. Maybe I’m wrong, but in the last year, every speedtest I’ve done has not fallen below 11.80Mbps even in mid day. The sudden 2Mbps speed drop that coincides with the speed increase in very improbable and unlikely.
I’d ask anyone that is on the “upgraded” Silver plan to share your results to see what your getting.
Dude, San Fransisco isn’t local here either…better buy that expensive sports package if you are so hard up for football on Sundays. I think Seattle is far more “local” than San Fran…