I read the Examiner article about Millstone Township’s inability to obtain faster Internet service from Cablevision. I think there is a much bigger picture here then just the single service provider solution you’ve mentioned in the article.
I also live in Millstone, I also have a great deal of frustration with this problem. I am in the communications industry and I design these infrastructures for other companies.
For two years now I have been a thorn in the side of the local would-be ISPs (Internet Service Providers) such as Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic) and Cablevision. I have been calling and e-mailing them constantly.
Although many ISPs claim to be able to provide Internet access, the truth is currently only these two companies, which are kind of utilities and more like monopolies, can provide the actual facilities (cables) to your home. In our area, these two companies currently own all the cable and all the electronics hooked up to the cable that make the communications work.
Verizon offers a greater number of services such as ISDN, DSL, and other more commercial data services such as T1 and many more. All these services are available somewhere, but the good residential services are not available here. Verizon only offers dialup and ISDN in Millstone. ISDN, although faster than a dialup modem, is already old technology. Money spent on an ISDN modem is, I feel, money wasted.
I do harbor a great deal of frustration with Cablevision, because they at one time told me their services would be available in early 2000, and now, as stated in your article, they don’t know when this stuff will be ready.
Verizon pulled the same stunt, they told me DSL would be available by January 2000. To compound my frustration with them, Verizon has in my back yard (a few hundred feet from my house) over a thousand strands of optical fiber which could support a city the size of Trenton.
Neither of these companies will commit to a date for any of these services. If I ran my business like that, I would be out of business in a month. Tell me they don’t have a monopoly.
Richard Tillman
Millstone