Time Warner is in the building

General
1

FYI,

I found out over the weekend that Time Warner is in the Anchor
Building now. I just called them on my lunch break and got the prices
for them to install in our space. There would be a $125 installation
fee and then it would be either $59 per month. That price is for the
Basic service 5M down and 768k up. To add on digital phones it would
be like another $45 per month. They said to expect 1 - 2 weeks for
installation. There are a range of plans that are higher bandwidth
that cost more obviously.

So, we can go ahead with this if we vote to approve it and if we have
the funds. Couple questions...

Is 5M/768k the same service as what we are supposed to be getting
already from Zoomtown? Has anyone called Cincinnati Bell to complain
and see if they can fix our bandwidth problems? Should we keep giving
them a chance, or just drop them? How much is the Zoomtown per month?

~Dave

2

i have been talking with TW and my contact can get us a lower install fee.

i was going to bring it up at the meeting tuesday.

3

Robot Morning tried talking w/ zoomtown and last I heard it was a problem between the building and the demark box. If Robot Morning is going w/ TW then that probably means zoomtown could not fix the problem.

4

yes. they ended up paying the construction costs that put TW out of
our price range. if we go thru their contact at TW and use them as a
referral they get a credit toward those costs.

WRT: phones, we have google voice already, so we could just use SIP
for the phone system and it wouldn't cost us anything for incoming
calls, and probably nothing for outgoing calls as well. i have been
meaning to finish setting up a phone switch for a while now. there
are a couple of really nice IP phones (snoms) that playertwo donated
that will let us have handsets in a couple of locations at the space.

craig said our cincinnati bell bill was about ~$95 per month. the
lowest tier that time warner offers is about $60 a month, which aside
from the $75 install fee, will end up costing us less per month,
especially if we DIY the phone system.

TW's next tier of service is 6 meg down, 1 meg up and includes 13
static IP's (!!) but is more than twice the price of the basic
package. their top tier package is 15mbit down and 2mbit up, but is
$300 a month.

when i was at defcon last year, nick farr from hacDC was talking about
how they shared a building with a bunch of other non-profits and were
able to wire the whole building for internet service and VOIP, saving
the other building residents money, and getting hacDC a ton of
bandwidth they would not be able to afford otherwise. perhaps a future
project might involve us doing something similar?

$300 a month sounds like a lot, but that's about what a commercial T1
costs (1.5m down 1.5m up). since the space is pretty mcuh empty
during the typical 9-5 work day, other businesses in the space with
those hours could make use of the bandwidth when while we were not
using it.

with our current budget of ~$100 for internet access and a phone, and
assuming others in the building are paying similar rates, if we could
get 4 others to pay $50 a month for phone and internet access, we
could all share that $300/month package. it's something to think
about.

at the very least, i think that paying less per month for more
bandwidth is a really good idea.

5

I would like to add that the phone line that Cincy Bell gave us is practically useless since they obviously sold the number to marketing firms. 99% of all calls are telemarketing spam. IMHO it actually costs us in productivity to have a phone line from cincinnati bell.

Craig

6

Are these commercial pricing? Or are these residential prices? I seem to recall the robot morning people saying that TW was not as strict about which you choose.

7

WRT: grouping together for the building internet/phone systems

I currently live downtown and use CBT’s FiOptics. Hands down the best service in the area: 30 mbit synchronous for $49/month, $10 for a phone line on top of that (non-voip)

Does anyone know the status of CBT FiOptics being run west of downtown? I understand the area might not be a big revenue bringer for Bell, but if they are running lines to the west side of town, it would seem plausible to run nearby, at least. And because multi-accounts-per-building usually piques their interest and gives them a reason to run fiber boxes into the building, it might be worth bringing up to Bell. That is, if the rest of the building finds it a suitable option.

I also remember hearing about talks with the Camp Washington community board and local businesses, etc. If Bell isn’t running, or planning on running, fiber to the area, perhaps bringing it up to the board could help drive some demand in the neighborhood as well.

And, I really am hoping to make it to tomorrow’s meeting. finally. lol :wink:

Joe Brockhaus

8

paul, they are commercial, which is what the contact gave me. the
nice thing about business accounts is that they let you do more in
terms of running services and things.

i have had my plug pulled a few times for running webservers and the
like on a residential account.

9

joe, to my knowledge they haven't really moved out of downtown yet.

my cousin is one of their sales guys and he has instructions to
contact me the *minute* our block shows up on the list of available
territories.

10

also, i shared the document TW sent me with all the packages and
everything on the hive13 google docs.

11

nice. that’s always helpful :slight_smile:

I do know they have spread east into Columbia-Tusculum/Mt. Adams, north up to UC, and even further up north to Pleasant Ridge area by Montgomery ave. (I’d guess there are more – but this is merely what I know from friends who live there)

One of my coworkers owns a rental property up on Wheeler, which is why i mentioned the multiple-accounts-per-building thing – he said they were running last-mile fiber to all the locations that would have >= 3 accounts post-install, first. That was over a year ago, however, so I’m not sure if that’s still the plan for other rollout areas.

I was just going on the idea that the Camp Washington area might be one of the least-considered areas to expand into, but if the community board and a host of area businesses start requesting fiber in the area, someone at Bell might get a lightbulb idea :slight_smile:

Joe Brockhaus
joe.brockhaus+spam@gmail.com
fel0nious+spam@gmail.com

12

That's not a bad idea about talking with the camp washington community
council. I've been meaning to go to one of their meetings anyway but
haven't made it yet. I think the next cwcc meeting is on Monday 8/9.
I'll try to make it if I can. If nothing else, just to spread some
good will.

We should still go ahead with getting the cable from TW for now though, imo.

~Dave

13

that's actually why i wanted a phone switch in the first place, to
stop a bunch of that stuff.