[LUAU] Road Runner Availability (was Linux - Road Runner How-to, round 2 )

[Doug Stanfield]

> Ronald Willis wrote:
> 
> Id be happy to assist as soon as RR is installed in my building. Any
> suggestions on how I can put some fire on their tails.
> 
> Ron
> 

You may want to reply privately to me with your specific information, but
I'm sending this to the list because there are probably several people
interested in the discussion.  The following points may not apply to you,
but I'm generalizing to give the most information.

Buildings, both residential (known as MDUs, or multiple dwelling units) and
office/commercial, are always the most difficult to work in for Oceanic.
This has meant there are still a significant number (5% of our customers,
give or take a point or two) of buildings that haven't been upgraded, even
five years after we began the project.  Most new buildings are designed with
great facilities for cabling and don't have problems.  These are probably
all finished.  Many older building simply didn't put in enough conduit space
to support CATV when they were built.  Cable TV may not have existed or the
developer was saving money on something that used to be percieved as a low
priority (remember those days?).  In these cases we probably are sharing a
very tight conduit with the telephone.  You'll recognize this if you find
the primary telephone jack in your place and it has your cable tv cable
coming out of it also.

In these cases, there are some building layouts that the cable originally
placed for TV service just won't support the new digital services such as
Road Runner.  Primarily because of high frequency losses.  We need to be
able to either replace the cable in the conduits, or even place new conduits
and pull cable.  Although manpower scheduling problems still hold us back,
primarily in commercial buildings, by now most of the issues are related to
permissions.  In many cases a Board of Directors or building owner has not
acted on a request from us for permission to rewire a building.  Sometimes
it is because of the new conduit needed and the aesthetics of the building.
Sometimes it is because of the scheduling required to get us access to all
the apartments.  In a few cases there have been choices made for alternate
video service providers.

If your building is not yet wired the best thing to do is research where the
issue stands with your building management.  Make it clear to them that you
want Road Runner service.  Find out if they need help with the project.
Become involved in finding a solution that works for the building.  If
you're looking at a commercial setting, call Oceanic Internet (the number is
on the oceanic.com web site) and ask for service so your name is added to
the list.  That will help us justify more upgrade crews and prioritize the
schedule for your building.

Please excuse the long windedness, but I hope this helps.

-Doug-

Doug Stanfield              Oceanic Cable
Director Data Networking    200 Akamainui St.
dougs at oceanic.com           Mililani, HI  96789 
--
     __   __  __________  __
    / /  / / / / __  / / / /  Home Page: http://luau.hi.net
   / /__/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/ /
  /____/\____/_/ /_/\____/  LUAU - Linux Users AnonymoUs - Hawaii

   To unsubscribe: echo unsubscribe luau | mail majordomo at luau.hi.net
           LUAU meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of each month 6pm