Mr. Albero:
I have recently contacted Comcast and Verizon in hopes that I can obtain internet service to my home in Mardela Springs. This said service is unavailable to me, however 1 mile in either direction, residents have that option. I find this discriminatory and thought it might make a good story for your blog. I might add that the service to the south of me was added with in the last 5 years stopping a mile short of my residence. This is also not the first instance of territory issues in my area. I have a physical address of Mardela Springs, MD which is Mardela School District, Sharptown, MD telephone exchange, and Delmar, MD mailing address.
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
22 comments:
BOO HOO, Discrimatory? Really?? You chose to live where you live, high speed internet service is not a right!!! Putz
For a small fee i'll record and send the shows you request.
Not sure if they reach you but look in to Atlantic broadband. Comcast pulled this same BS on my parents for several years until we finally had Atlantic BB come to the area.
We have been very happy with Atlantic, it's been fast and reliable, with excellent customer service. And then theirs comcast...enough said.
@ 9:50
He may not have internet but at least hes not ignorant like you.
Yea 9:45 suck up that piece of bad news like the rest of us Boon-dockers. Or pay 50 bucks a month for a hot spot like I do through Verizon wireless.
yes, its not a Phone or Cable's responsibility to provide service to one every resident on delmarva. they are a business, and if it is NOT profitable for them to bring you service, then no one should make them, unless you want to live in Communist Russia comrade, where they used to take your children for your whiney behavior. Live somewhere else, its called Free Market and the power of the people to CHOSE. you see if you want cable, maybe you should OFFER them the necessary monies to run the backbone cable to your yard. then you might get somewhere.
I'm out in the country in Mardela Springs. We get Comcast and also Verizon. We are kind of between Mardela and Sharptown.
I'm sure either company will be tickled to extend service to you for a fee to cover their costs. Obviously the cost to run a line is what it is; per person it's less for a hundred than it is for one.
Same problem here! too ar from town for DSL and comcast stops less than a mile north and south. Verizon Wireless allows for high speed, but limits on downloads keep me from using the internet as much as I would like.
We have the same situation. Our road connects 2 busy roads but we are the only house on our road. It's not worth their while to run cable, etc. down it. We choose to get the local digital channels and use a Verizon air card. We're okay with it and enjoy our privacy. LOL
Suck it up , it will get worse in the future. Comcast and Verizon have gotten too big for their britches . It's called a monopoly.
They are also breaking the anti-trust laws.
Obamie , you da man!!!!!
Comcast may be a for profit company but they also have a virtual monoply on highspeed internet in many areas, including the shore.
And those calling out this poor guy for complaining about the poor state of highspeed internet on the shore get off your high horses. You would be saying the same exact thing if you were in their shoes.
Lets see how long you would last if you were disconnected from the net, gasp, you might have to step outside in the real world to do your ridiculing.
@
10:42, hate to break it to ya there but Comcast and Verizon have been monopolistic since well before Obama.
You morons would blame Obama if you spilled your own coffee on yourself.
+1 for Atlantic BB - well worth a phone call. Their net speeds and service are terrific.
I'm stuck w/ Comcast, thanks to the franchise.
If Comcast or Verizon doesn't service your house with high speed Internet, it's because it's not profitable for them to do so. Unfortunately, we have a lot of rural areas around. Without population density to lower installation costs per unit, the math doesn't work out for anybody.
Comcast will gladly wire up your house for the right price. But I imagine a mile of cable is going to cost $25000 or more. It's difficult to expect them to make this investment for 1 person. They wouldn't even make their money back for about 20 years. And heaven forbid they have to repair anything during that time.
Your avenue to get services in your house is to speak with your county councilman. Comcast has an exclusive franchise agreement. In return, they pay fees to the county government. When the agreement is up for renewal, the county can negotiate improved coverage in areas as well as fees.
Ideally, we would ditch the exclusive part of the agreement. Overall, Wicomico has decent infrastructure compared to many areas. So the exclusive agreement isn't too horrible. You mostly see the effects via frequent, expensive price hikes and a rather sparse channel linup compared to many other markets.
My parents live in an area serviced by 2 cable companies and Verizon FiOS. They pay half what Wicomico residents pay for very similar service levels. I noticed their much better pricing nearly 20 years ago and it's still the case.
Short of your desire to aggressively lobby representatives for years in hopes of a positive change for yourself, you can be Comcast's free salesperson and convince others along the way to sign up for service if it becomes available, you could decide your home is more important to you than getting a wired service provider and look for a wireless alternative, or you can sell your house and move to an area that has service options.
I guess its also discrimination that the county refuses to pave a dirt county road, because there is only one or two houses on a three mile long road. Muddy Hole Road???. You sir/mam need to understand what discrimination is and stop throwing that word around like its nothing. Cable/telephone is not a right, just because Obama decided to give some lower class people a free cellular telephone I guess now you want a free cable subsription. Do like the rest of us buy a satelite dish, or a wifi hot spot.
It's just one of the downfalls of rural living. We had to pay thousands to have cable/internet brought to us-a distance of around 1/2 a mile.
We couldn't go the satellite route because something about the line of sight was obstructed by multiple stands of evergreens.
If you got a verizon phone you can get dsl. it works on phone lines. They also have package deals.
Try Hugh's net?
The original commenter must be my neighbor as I waited for years for cable in the exact same area. Now it's here and I regret it. Yeah, it's the best bet for what's available but in the past 5 years, the cost has risen a ton. I don't want a package but the single services are more than a package. So, what do you do? Suck it up, buttercup. As to DSL & Verizon in 12:08's post, NO, just because you have Verizon, you don't automatically have DSL. DSL is based on "copper wire miles from the switching office", at least as I'm told by Verizon each year when I call and get an update. Out here, we have Sharptown phone numbers & lines but are "over 4 copper wire miles from the switching office" so DSL is not available to us. Again, suck it up. It's better than it used to be, but I will agree, we still have a long way to go. But it ain't discrimination, it's business sense. Sorry, for all the negatives, the plus of living out here far outweighs my petty aggravations.
I also live in an underserved area so we got Hughesnet for 49.99 a month.Mobile plans will not work in our area-poor signal quality.Hughesnet is not suitable for streaming video and Voip but it fits our internet needs and we are able to run two home computers off the one dish.
These other major companies are full of sh*t when they go on about the "high cost of services to rural areas" because as soon as a high-dollar development goes up,they break their necks running cable out to it.I have family who are even more rural than I am and they have DSL because there are "McMansion" subdivisions at either end of their back roads.
Last but not least, for those of who did not know,there is a push underway to fully subsidize highspeed internet for the same group that already gets free cell phones and housing.It's operating under the guise of "equal access" when in fact all it means is that the regular subscriber will pay more in fees and surcharges so that people in the projects can get DSL for 9.99 a month.Hope and change!
16 years ago when I moved to my house Comcast had just installed new lines down the road I moved to. My house sits back off the road about 1800 feet. I called to get comcast since I had only ever had the local 3 stations. They came out to run the temporary wire but left before completing the work without saying a word. Several days later I get a contract in the mail from them for over 9k dollars to install the needed boosters and larger hard wire. I ordered Primestar/directv the same day and never looked back. In the 16 years I have had dish I can count the number of times on my fingers that I have not had service due to their end. All the horror stoories I have heard of others over the years with comcast makes me that much more sure I did the right thing. As far as internet dial up was all that was available at 1st then I got an ISDN line which was much faster and allowed several computers at one time but was several hundred dollars per month. several tears ago Verizon offered up the dsl.....yeah
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