We live on.

dslwanter · 2025-01-18T18:41:34+00:00

Come back home folks and lets continue to track that fiber build!

kirk1233

dslwanter not sure how it’s desperate, I left and came back a year and a half ago. Sometimes you can save money with a provider that also provides good service but sometimes the new provider has awful customer service and a bad network (i.e. poor peering leading to peak hours congestion.)

Armstrong provides a robust network with responsive state side support…

dslwanter

kirk1233 Yes, I deeply regret my decision to switch to a national provider with outsourced overseas calling because I don’t know how to do basic troubleshooting. After all, I’d rather pay triple what I should just to get a cute overly perky American chick at a call center in Butler.

kirk1233

dslwanter LOL even if you “know what you’re doing” you sometimes need to open a ticket or have a truck roll if there’s optical issues. it works fine until it doesn’t. Armstrong moves mountains to get a truck to your house same day or next day. The other provider I can choose from you wait on hold up to an hour to talk to someone overseas and the dispatch can take days…

You may be lucky to have another provider that isn’t as awful (I suspect AT&T has the resources to roll a truck quick since they’re funded by other means than just internet/landlines.)

dslwanter

kirk1233 Isn’t that what funds Armstrong? Internet/over priced TV service over lines? People have bad experiences with Armstrong too. Our local Facebook feed has stories about hold times, waiting days to get service back, and above all the outrageous pricing. They totally botched fiber deployment in many neighborhoods around here, using the cheapest of the cheap contractors with non-english speaking workers, knocking the existing coax system out of balance and causing service disruptions, capacity related local outages, etc. . Armstrong isn’t the gold standard anymore, sorry, they have moved away from that. They are no better than other other provider. Just because you had a bad experience with a competitor doesn’t mean others had the same experience, just like the people on our community Facebook group, doesn’t mean everyone has a bad experience with Armstrong. Just saying, they are a for profit business just like the others.

AT&T’s gateway gives several diagnostic and signal related metrics to help me determine if I need a truck roll or not. Additionally, I know how to check for dust, dirt, etc. The call centers are scripted to direct you accordingly once you start talking like that. I can open a service request with all the details right from the AT&T portal, I don’t even need to call.

kirk1233

Maybe AT&T would work for me if they were an option where I live, but I only have Armstrong or Fidium, and Armstrong is still the gold standard where I am…

(Although I’ve heard AT&Ts gateways don’t have a bridge mode and you can’t get an ONT only unit without routing so not sure I would like that…)

xpxp2002

kirk1233 (Although I’ve heard AT&Ts gateways don’t have a bridge mode and you can’t get an ONT only unit without routing so not sure I would like that…)

The gateway is an integrated ONT+router. They have what they call “passthrough” mode. It’s not a true L2 bridge, but it’s sufficient for most people who want to use their own router. From what I’ve read, it allows a downstream gateway to pull an IPv4 address via DHCP and an IPv6 /60 prefix.

There are third party PON optics that people have gotten to work on AT&T, as well. It’s certainly not supported, but if you really wanted to bypass the ONT, which I’d understand from a privacy perspective, it is technically possible.

dslwanter

kirk1233 . It does pass through mode and for my household of 5, it does everything I need/want. I can easily bypass and go back to ubiquiti if I want. I did that in 2018 when Armstrong actually offered you a discount for being modem only. AT&T allows you full access to the gateway, not like they limit me. I can dmz, port forward, switch to static IPs, change my subnet, enable vlans, disable IPv6 if I don’t want it, but from an IT standpoint I have no limitations with myself, wife, and 3 kids. So, why not use the included gateway? I did the same thing with Armstrong when they stopped giving you a standalone discount and included the plume pods when one of my Ubiquiti APs took a shit. I back feed where I purposely placed the att gateway dead center my house for optimum wifi from the att 5gbps lan port down to my patch panel which feeds a 2.5gbps switch for my server and workstation that has a 2.5gbps nic and cascades a 1gbps switch. This is the only overkill I believe in from an administration standpoint beyond a standard home user for my purposes, I believe my servers, workstations, gaming consoles, and TVs should all be hard wired. It’s honestly a pretty badass setup.

xpxp2002

dslwanter Some new 811 tickets were filed today in a neighborhood near mine and along another nearby street that has aerial utilities. Kanaan Communications is doing directional boring. It doesn’t say fiber in the descriptions, but can’t imagine what else it would be. Notably, the areas they filed tickets on correspond with areas where Kinetic had their contractor pull fiber in December. I suspect they are starting the underground work for fiber expansion. It’s progress. I’ll take it.

There are also a couple neighborhoods in a city near me where Kinetic has not pulled fiber, but a ton of dig tickets also showed up today filed for a contractor called “Future Communications.” I’m not sure if they’re somehow connected to Kanaan or the Kinetic expansion. It could also possibly be Lumos, assuming they did not stop their expansion post-T-Fiber acquisition. That city was on Lumos’ original “future” list, but is not on the T-Fiber one. The contact for these tickets is a T-Mobile number in Tampa, FL. So I doubt it’s altafiber.

dslwanter

xpxp2002 Kanaan did work around here in the Boardman area during last year’s Comcast intrude on the south part of Armstrong’s Boardman system. Directional boring is fiber for sure, either way, someone’s construction is starting in your area!

xpxp2002

dslwanter Got another letter from Kinetic in the mail about two weeks ago, this one in an unfolded letter-sized envelope. Another “fiber construction is starting soon” letter like they’ve been sending since February. No new information.

Then someone came by yesterday and put a door hanger on our front door yesterday. Same thing.

But I went over to Dig Logix and checked, and a whole bunch of tickets for that “Future Communications” excavator were filed around my neighborhood. So now I know who “Future Communications” is working for. And now that the tickets are in, I expect that construction should be starting very soon since paint and flags will be marked.

The oddest thing to me is that nearly every utility responded “no conflict” to the ticket, including Windstream themselves who has active POTS lines underground, as well as Ohio Edison. I assume that means that those utilities don’t intend to send anyone out to mark. Charter/Spectrum and Enbridge Ohio Gas responded 004, that they would work with the excavator to get clarification on the ticket. Not surprising, as one of the tickets covers a very generic center point between two streets on the map.

“Tick.”

dslwanter

Had a bullshit session with another parent at a travel ball game. Turns out he’s been in my area because the company he owns did all the fiber in our township for Armstrong. Let’s just say this, his company has had to go in and clean up what a lot of contractors did wrong. Armstrong is no better than any other telecom provider after all the shit he told me. We struck a bromance for sure.

dslwanter

AT&T is now offering 2gbps with Wi-Fi 7 gateway included for $62/mo bundled with mobile. I am tempted for the better Wi-Fi performance.

xpxp2002

@dslwanter First change I’ve seen on the Omni service area page in months today. Salem and Sebring are now considered partially constructed.

https://www.omnifiber.com/serviceareas/

dslwanter

xpxp2002 Didn’t know they were wiring those areas. They certainly need the competition. Although, parts of Sebring were actually one of the first areas around here to get AT&T Fiber just before 2020 I believe. Regarding Omni, I am still not understanding how they can wire up Girard, Austintown, and Niles but pull out of Mineral Ridge and McDonald (Weathersfield Township)which sit right in the middle of those areas when AT&T has a presence in all 3 and about half of it is covered by Armstrong.

hitherelolz

xpxp2002 Speaking of Omni, I saw something mentioning that they acquired Citizens Fiber, who services western PA, and some of the cities that Omni had already labeled as coming soon. I guess we all have to wait and see what happens with that but seems like they are making some sort of progress in that area as well.

A bunch of PA towns were also put up to “now available” in the past month or so.

xpxp2002

dslwanter They’ve been on the “under construction and coming soon” list for a long time, but I am as surprised as you are that they’re actually apparently underway now. Just like Austintown, Boardman, and Canfield and the dozen or so other cities/townships that have been “coming soon” since 2024 or so. Haven’t heard anybody tell me that Omni has done anything in those areas yet either.

I agree regarding Mineral Ridge/Weathersfield. Unless it had something to do with that Spectrum edge-out. Maybe they just didn’t see a worthwhile investment if they were already going to be competing with Armstrong, AT&T, and Spectrum.

dslwanter

xpxp2002 I am guessing the same, but I can tell the Spectrum edgeout has stalled and remains literally on 46. Boardman and Canfield seem to be on the Comcast edgeout as is Poland, and all 3 cities have both Armstrong and AT&T, so I am surprised Omni hasn’t dropped them yet. But you are correct, I haven’t seen any construction for Omni in those areas nor heard of any. I have only seen Comcast and the continuing Armstrong and AT&T roll outs.

dslwanter

dslwanter a little off topic but this just happened to the AT&T building by YSU. I literally walked here this morning between meetings: Check out this link: http://www.wfmj.com/tncms/asset/editorial/0c76f14c-a805-4e5b-b1ce-08909b20ed3f.

xpxp2002

dslwanter Oh wow. I was told nearly 20 years ago that AT&T had vacated most of that building. Whole floors that used to house numerous 5ESS and tandems, along with the long-since removed microwave equipment, were empty.

My understanding was that only a couple floors were still in use, likely housing BTS hardware for the cell site at the top of the tower, along with a minimal CO presence mostly serving downtown businesses connected to various fiber services (DIA, MPLS, etc.). Not sure what YSU would be doing with the remaining space, other than perhaps just storage. I know YSU used to use the adjacent former switchboard building on Phelps St. as classroom space. Not sure if that is still the case.

My guess is that a lack of inspection or poor maintenance is the culprit for the facade falling away, but who knows.

dslwanter

xpxp2002 they also did seem to run the deep fiber back haul from most of the area down to the Att building starting in 2021 and early 2022, a few months to a year before the big initial att fiber push in this area. Almost as if it’s the central hub feeding all of the COs in the area.

xpxp2002

hitherelolz I saw that this afternoon, too.

https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/2026-ma-tracker

« Previous Page Next Page »