Nashville TN area .gov/power utility apparently corrupt as hell. (rant)
So the company I work for built a new building in a Nashville, TN suburb this summer. Since it was new construction, there were no communications utilities on the property. My reseller called Spectrum in early May and were assured that they serviced the property. (I am responsible for servers and networking for the entire operation)
Early June we put in the order for new service and were given a solid ETA of 8/21 from Spectrum for install. "It might take up to 48 hours after that to provision the line, but that is unusual." OK. We schedule the move for 8/21 because we have to be out of our old building by 9/1 and have it totally cleaned out. We received regular updates from them as we got closer to the move with no indications at all that anything was abnormal. It was always “100% all systems GO!”
8/21 comes and goes, and no Spectrum guy shows up. When pressed, we were told "Oh, yeah, about that. We are waiting for the building permit. We cant hang the wires on the poles without that." 8/22 is the first time permit delays were mentioned. No "hey, I know we are supposed to install in a week, but we are still waiting on a permit. But it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Fast forward a couple weeks. Then they said “it typically takes 90 days from the time it reaches the construction dept (at spectrum) to get the permit.” OK, the install date is roughly 90 days from the order placement. What's the excuse?
At 120 days they are now saying “this could take up to 6 months to get the permits approved. That is the maximum amount of time they can take to approve it.” Really? 6 months for permission to attach wires from a major national carrier onto the power poles? This is fishy. Something isn’t right. This isn’t some fly by night vendor, or some hilljack wanting to attach rando cables to poles so they can connect two of their buildings together several blocks apart. It’s a standard utility installation that happens all the time across the country for Pete's sake!
Meanwhile we are running our business there on a cellular router, with a crappy connection, and I don’t even want to know what that data overage charge is going to be. (my boss sees those)
Now, today, we get new info. Our neighbor there mentioned they have internet. Who is it? Why its fiber internet from the power company of all places. Huh. Go figure. There is fiber on the pole by us, they could probably hook us up pretty quickly. (our reseller who handles the myriad of carrier circuits doesn’t have a relationship with them but is reaching out to see what they can do)
So how convenient. We have internet available there, but only through the power company…
who owns the power poles…
who is ultimately responsible for approval of the building permit to attach new competing service wires to those same poles.
Great business model. Provide a utility service and then branch out into the ISP market. When an ISP competitor needs to collocate, you slow walk the permit so the customer gives up and has to buy from you if they want to actually operate.
Granted I have no proof there are any shenanigans afoot, but it just seems too ironic that the company responsible for the unbelievable delays is a direct competitor of our vendor. I’ve never run into anything this crazy in 15 years doing this. Sure, I’ve been quoted stupid expensive costs to extend service, (some reasonable, some outrageous) but never have I had a building permit for internet service slow walked for no apparent reason. And when our reseller asks? All they get is
.
Not that I would do anything rash, but I’m starting to empathize with the likes of the D-Fens guy and Kiritsis. BS like this is what causes folks to go off the deep end and snap.
/rant
EDIT: At this point we appear to have a choice of waiting until January, possibly February for Internet from Spectrum, or get Internet from the power company this month.
So the company I work for built a new building in a Nashville, TN suburb this summer. Since it was new construction, there were no communications utilities on the property. My reseller called Spectrum in early May and were assured that they serviced the property. (I am responsible for servers and networking for the entire operation)
Early June we put in the order for new service and were given a solid ETA of 8/21 from Spectrum for install. "It might take up to 48 hours after that to provision the line, but that is unusual." OK. We schedule the move for 8/21 because we have to be out of our old building by 9/1 and have it totally cleaned out. We received regular updates from them as we got closer to the move with no indications at all that anything was abnormal. It was always “100% all systems GO!”
8/21 comes and goes, and no Spectrum guy shows up. When pressed, we were told "Oh, yeah, about that. We are waiting for the building permit. We cant hang the wires on the poles without that." 8/22 is the first time permit delays were mentioned. No "hey, I know we are supposed to install in a week, but we are still waiting on a permit. But it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Fast forward a couple weeks. Then they said “it typically takes 90 days from the time it reaches the construction dept (at spectrum) to get the permit.” OK, the install date is roughly 90 days from the order placement. What's the excuse?
At 120 days they are now saying “this could take up to 6 months to get the permits approved. That is the maximum amount of time they can take to approve it.” Really? 6 months for permission to attach wires from a major national carrier onto the power poles? This is fishy. Something isn’t right. This isn’t some fly by night vendor, or some hilljack wanting to attach rando cables to poles so they can connect two of their buildings together several blocks apart. It’s a standard utility installation that happens all the time across the country for Pete's sake!
Meanwhile we are running our business there on a cellular router, with a crappy connection, and I don’t even want to know what that data overage charge is going to be. (my boss sees those)
Now, today, we get new info. Our neighbor there mentioned they have internet. Who is it? Why its fiber internet from the power company of all places. Huh. Go figure. There is fiber on the pole by us, they could probably hook us up pretty quickly. (our reseller who handles the myriad of carrier circuits doesn’t have a relationship with them but is reaching out to see what they can do)
So how convenient. We have internet available there, but only through the power company…
who owns the power poles…
who is ultimately responsible for approval of the building permit to attach new competing service wires to those same poles.
Great business model. Provide a utility service and then branch out into the ISP market. When an ISP competitor needs to collocate, you slow walk the permit so the customer gives up and has to buy from you if they want to actually operate.
Granted I have no proof there are any shenanigans afoot, but it just seems too ironic that the company responsible for the unbelievable delays is a direct competitor of our vendor. I’ve never run into anything this crazy in 15 years doing this. Sure, I’ve been quoted stupid expensive costs to extend service, (some reasonable, some outrageous) but never have I had a building permit for internet service slow walked for no apparent reason. And when our reseller asks? All they get is
. Not that I would do anything rash, but I’m starting to empathize with the likes of the D-Fens guy and Kiritsis. BS like this is what causes folks to go off the deep end and snap.
/rant
EDIT: At this point we appear to have a choice of waiting until January, possibly February for Internet from Spectrum, or get Internet from the power company this month.
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