Comments on: Martins Store Broadband over Powerline Update February 27, 2009

By: Peggy Joseph

Peggy Joseph — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:30:14 +0000

Lynn (the IBEC person) spent a good part of Wed afternoon here at the house working with me on getting a reasonable reception. It felt so good having a real person here trying to figure out what is going on. It seems to me that IBEC is making quite an effort and I appreciate Lynn. The situation right now is that it might be that my computer has/(hopefully had) too many cookies, spies etc. that it made the internet connection unable to function properly. So now I am in the process of cleaning up. Haven’t gotten very far. I wonder if anyone else experiences such interference in their computer as to interfere. What about with the other means that are being used? is this ever a concern?

By: Tommy

Tommy — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:51:49 +0000

Glad to hear they contacted you Rev Thompson. I passed your concerns on to one of their owners earlier this week, so this means they are following up. Very good news! A member of the Elliot Contracting crews stopped here at the office yesterday as well to investigate what kind of noise was on the line preventing service working here. They discovered a repair from a year or two ago left an abundance of noise on the lines. They needed to kill the power, but since we are in deadline right now that wasn’t an option. But they are trying to remedy these bugs. I agree with you. Once we got to the right person (albeit 8 months later) some things have started happening.

By: Rev. Tommy Thompson

Rev. Tommy Thompson — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:34:30 +0000

Hello everyone,
Lynn, a PR spokesperson for IBEC phoned me yesterday and paid me a visit today, and I must say, I am impressed with IBEC’s desire to restore their reputation in Nelson county.

I hope my comments about my situation has not led others to make decisions that might be too hasty. I could be classified as a “techy.” I have expectations of internet and technical support that may not be realistic in this area. All that is too say, if you are in need of a free phone line and have only experienced dial up internet, IBEC will be wonderful for you whenever they finally get all the bugs worked out. As I have reported elsewhere, IBEC offers the best ping rate around (which means VOIP may end up being an option down the road) and when my service was up and running, I was consistently recording 300-450kbps download and 200-300 up.

By the way, after using alltel a few days, I have noticed that the tower out here is overloaded. There are certain times when the service is fast, but there are other times when it is really slow (around 200kbps) due to so many customers using the only couple of towers in Nelson County.

I hope this helps!

By: Tommy

Tommy — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:46:36 +0000

Rev Thompson, thanks for keeping us in the loop. My meeting with one of the IBEC owners was rescheduled until next Mon or Tuesday here in Nelson, but he is emailing with me often and I am passing along all of these concerns to him, I have conveyed to him that this is a serious/ critical issue on trust among customers out here. I’ll keep everyone posted when I know anything more. Again, thanks for being our Technology Disciple!

By: Rev. Tommy Thompson

Rev. Tommy Thompson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:26:57 +0000

With my BPL connection being out for so long and IBEC having no idea what the problem is nor when it will be fixed, I am finally sending my modem back. I have tested everything I could and have decided that alltel air card with high gain antenna and router will be the best option for me (I will have 400-700kbps pretty consistently…with the antenna, I may even get around 1Mbps). I was able to get the air card on ebay, so no contract. I will let you all know how that works for me once I have it connected for a little while. Good luck as you continue to look for viable broadband options.
Tommy

By: Janet

Janet — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:44:14 +0000

Just to let you all know, I had VW aircard last spring/summer.

I gave it up – switching my data contract for voice – when I signed up for BPL in August (how naive I was)

However, I would have given it up anyway because we in Nelson were – at that time at least – not in what was one of VW’s true broadband areas so everytime there was an update to the card I would have to drive over the mountain to W’boro to reconfigure it or I couldnt use it.

That was before the merger w/ Alltel but I doubt this had changed yet b/c I still can’t update my VW phone from Afton.

VW’s data service (which was tantamount to wireless dial-up) was still faster than regular dialup and still better than Alltel’s data card service (which I had from October-December 2007), for reasons which I wont go into. And I wouldn’t even consider nTelos or satellite for a host of other reasons.

With all the topographical considerations we have out here, I’ll go with grounded any day.

By: Rev. Tommy Thompson

Rev. Tommy Thompson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:32:06 +0000

One more thing about this air card business. If you want to go this route, look on ebay for a card. The alltel UM175 card ranges from 39.99 to 89.99 on ebay. If you buy it there, NO CONTRACT! If you buy it out right from alltel, 219.00. (Contract is 100.00 with 100.00 rebate).

By: Rev. Tommy Thompson

Rev. Tommy Thompson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:19:13 +0000

okay, my testing is over. You won’t believe this. I went and picked up an air card from Verizon this evening…in Waynesboro, i was getting 1100kbps. When I turned of VA 6 and onto US-29 (toward Cville) and then back onto VA 6 E (in Faber), my speed was a whopping 1900kbps. I went 1 mile down the road to turn on my road, and it was down to 1100kbps. But then, when i got in my house, 100-300kbps. BOOO BOOO BOOO . haha. … I guess I really do have to hope IBEC gets it together.

At least they let you turn the card in for no charge during the first 3 days.

By: Rev. Tommy Thompson

Rev. Tommy Thompson — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:40:48 +0000

anyone tried Verizon’s mobile broadband in 22938 zipcode? Just curious. Same price as Alltel with a 5GB per month threshold. Their map shows us in “extended broadband network.”

By: Rev. Tommy Thompson

Rev. Tommy Thompson — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:43:08 +0000

Ah, I’m jealous. I am using my blackberry right now and my speeds are 200-300kbps down and 70-90kbps up.

By: Tommy

Tommy — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:38:52 +0000

Thanks Rev Thompson. We grabbed a Netgear 3G router over at Amazon. 121.95. But you are correct. You have to make sure it’s compatible with the aircard you are using. Though the provider you are using may not be listed, it’s essential you make sure the specific model of aircard is. IN our case Noveltel 737.

We did get back on the BPL net yesterday in the afternoon, but it was slower than dialup at the time and we just couldn’t work so we had to go back to sat briefly until we configured the 3G router.

We are now operating on it with the latest results of 822kbps down and 224 up.

By: Rev. Tommy Thompson

Rev. Tommy Thompson — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:00:42 +0000

Tommy,
Actually the router worked great for me. I would recommend the cradlepoint MBR1000. You can get it at best buy for 249.99. It is a little pricey, but it is a very nice router. You can also get it online…www.cradlepoint.com.

I am using it right now with my blackberry curve. My BPL stopped working Saturday and is still down, so it is nice that i can just plug my bberry into the router for emergency use.

The only issue I had was when I tried to use a particular alltel aircard which was not supported. I called tech support, which was a great experieince, and they told me the card would be supported when the next firmware update was released in four months. However, there was another alltel card cradlepoint did support, so I exchanged cards. My lack of satisfaction was due to the speeds of the alltel card and not due to the effectiveness of the cradlepoint router.

I looked at the cradlepoint site and it shows that the Franklin CDU-680 is supported (http://www.cradlepoint.com/support/mbr1000). You may have to update the firmware when you buy the router, but that is fairly easy update.

I hope this helps!

By: Yvette

Yvette — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:04:36 +0000

Got a call from James at IBEC this morning to try one more outlet in the den and he says that one should work. He is sending over a repeater so as soon as we get that, we can begin testing the connection. BPL vs. nTelos … talk about March Madness!

By: Henri

Henri — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:34:23 +0000

There are several postings, which noted electrical outlet reception problems. In older homes the polarity of the electric wires may be reversed. Also the ground wire may not be attached in some homes. Polarity and ground do not in most cases effect operation; however, since this signal rides along the current, polarity and ground may be important to reception.
If IBEC feels that this may be important, one can easily check both polarity and ground with an inexpensive outlet box tester sold at the hardware store. Just a thought…see what IBEC says.

By: Yvette

Yvette — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:21:35 +0000

Just got off the phone with IBEC and after 45 minutes of troubleshooting, we couldn’t get an adequate signal from various outlets in the house. The nice support guy told me Asa would be getting in touch with us Tuesday so we’ll see. Also, if we do find a suitable outlet away from our computer rooms — mind you, I am NOT willing to have a modem hanging out in my half bath, dining room, etc. — they may have to ship us a piece of hardware that would broadcast the signal through the home’s electrical lines. I tell you, nTelos just seems much more user-friendly at the moment, given our geographic location. The wireless router’s on the way so we’lll make a final determination once we get to test it out. It’d sure be nice to upload the April issue from home this time …