I just received this email update from my State Rep about a new law in Pennsylvania to promote extending broadband into unserved areas of the state. This could help you folks still living with dialup, if that. Hope this is the right forum.
New Pennsylvania broadband law
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Missouri did something similar a year or so ago. They allocated state and federal funds to incentivize broadband development in rural areas. Not sure what the outcome is/was, but I know I was able to get my DSL speed increased from 25mbps to 50mbps.
It would be nice if they could force Verizon to improve our service with passage of this but I doubt it. We have had only <3 Mbps DSL from them for years even though we pay them what others in non-rural areas pay for true high speed internet. Worst thing is an ice storm more than two years ago knocked down the line and several poles. It even fell into a creek. They patched the line, ran it through tree limbs and attached it to a road sign as a temporary fix. That 'temporary' fix has been there for two years now even though we have contacted them four times about it since then. They always put in a work order and say it will be fixed but it never is. 
Have you tried filing a complaint with the PUC? Might be worth a try.It would be nice if they could force Verizon to improve our service with passage of this but I doubt it. We have had only <3 Mbps DSL from them for years even though we pay them what others in non-rural areas pay for true high speed internet. Worst thing is an ice storm more than two years ago knocked down the line and several poles. It even fell into a creek. They patched the line, ran it through tree limbs and attached it to a road sign as a temporary fix. That 'temporary' fix has been there for two years now even though we have contacted them four times about it since then. They always put in a work order and say it will be fixed but it never is.
No, have not gone that route yet. We were hoping to switch to another provider, like Starlink, but may need to try that.
They've been doing something in NC since 2010. Still plenty of places yet to serve, but lots of places in the middle of nowhere have fiber internet now that never would have gotten in without the initiative.
In my area in N. PA, Tri County REC's Tri County Connections on on the very tail end on completion of its fiber network.
Customers of the former Adelphia and now Zito Meda are leaping towards the new service. Zito's infrastructure is very dated and in need of major line repairs. At the end of my road the aerial cable in places looks like a blown up blunderbuss barrel where they splice in a new chunk of cable.
Also Zito's tech support line is engulfed with calls on hold for sometimes 45 minutes, frequent outages, and over a week to get a field tech dispatched. Worse yet is techs are filling out completion reports where the may never show at your home. Leaving the subscriber with the same problems.
After months of just too many customers having Internet and VOIP issues, droppages, cable modems requiring reboots and customer service telling the subscriber the issue is an internal to home problem. One day there was an extensive outage where I suspect they finally swapped a string of equipment at the head end (possibly just CMTS blades), service has been rock solid. Aside from middle of the night maintenance.
Trico Connections runs fiber from the pole into your home all the way to the ONT.
Prices are about 5 dollars (give or take...mostly give) more than Zito's cable service.
With a UPS on the network terminator, power outages or "flickers" do not interrupt the Internet service as opposed to cable, which always goes down when power glitches occur. And they do.
I've had ADT call me on my cell phone sometimes 6 or more times a day due to cable internet going down.
One more time Zito fails, I'm making the leap to fiber.
That's my rant for the day.
Customers of the former Adelphia and now Zito Meda are leaping towards the new service. Zito's infrastructure is very dated and in need of major line repairs. At the end of my road the aerial cable in places looks like a blown up blunderbuss barrel where they splice in a new chunk of cable.
Also Zito's tech support line is engulfed with calls on hold for sometimes 45 minutes, frequent outages, and over a week to get a field tech dispatched. Worse yet is techs are filling out completion reports where the may never show at your home. Leaving the subscriber with the same problems.
After months of just too many customers having Internet and VOIP issues, droppages, cable modems requiring reboots and customer service telling the subscriber the issue is an internal to home problem. One day there was an extensive outage where I suspect they finally swapped a string of equipment at the head end (possibly just CMTS blades), service has been rock solid. Aside from middle of the night maintenance.
Trico Connections runs fiber from the pole into your home all the way to the ONT.
Prices are about 5 dollars (give or take...mostly give) more than Zito's cable service.
With a UPS on the network terminator, power outages or "flickers" do not interrupt the Internet service as opposed to cable, which always goes down when power glitches occur. And they do.
I've had ADT call me on my cell phone sometimes 6 or more times a day due to cable internet going down.
One more time Zito fails, I'm making the leap to fiber.
That's my rant for the day.
I would easily spend that extra $5 a month to suspend the headaches you are encountering. I wouldn't wait for the next failure. I'd do it today! I actually did this same kind of thing, and it cost me a ton more than $5 a month, years ago when I fired AT&T who gave me 1.5 down at the max and hired Comcast to get 200 down. I've never looked back.
Just another shocker you would never hear at a car dealership. 'Well, maybe you should go buy a Honda".
That's basically what I got from the supposed lead of the Zito sales team. After days and weeks of describing my issues with my cable service. Complete with screen shots of wavering signal and massively incrementing Uncorrectable/Corrected stats which were supposed to be forwarded to the engineering dept. The engineering department is totally unreachable directly by phone, and the building commonly called the Taj Mahal is locked down tight as a bulls you-know-what at fly time where a common person cannot enter.
The lead field engineer (not just a F connector splicer) was fired some time ago because Zito forced him back into full time duty after an auto accident where doctors orders said partial light duty.
Tons of people here were livid at failed VOIP, DVR, and Internet failures. Tech support and field tech's did not fix their problems.
One text message to Isaac of my modem stats and he headed to the front end and swapped out a glitchy CMTS and a few line amps. Problems solved, and customers settled down all over. For the longest time.
So, back to the first part. I called the sales lead and talked with him of how he could sell a defective product, how word of mouth and lax service repairs plagued his company. And how going to the competitor just looked too good considering it was a only little more a month. And how it's pretty sad when customers who are so fed up were getting satellite Internet installed. How people having their VOIP service were taking my advice and going to Vonage.
His respones? "Well maybe then you had better go to Tri County Connections".
That was sweet. I wonder if his call was being monitored for quality assurance.
That's basically what I got from the supposed lead of the Zito sales team. After days and weeks of describing my issues with my cable service. Complete with screen shots of wavering signal and massively incrementing Uncorrectable/Corrected stats which were supposed to be forwarded to the engineering dept. The engineering department is totally unreachable directly by phone, and the building commonly called the Taj Mahal is locked down tight as a bulls you-know-what at fly time where a common person cannot enter.
The lead field engineer (not just a F connector splicer) was fired some time ago because Zito forced him back into full time duty after an auto accident where doctors orders said partial light duty.
Tons of people here were livid at failed VOIP, DVR, and Internet failures. Tech support and field tech's did not fix their problems.
One text message to Isaac of my modem stats and he headed to the front end and swapped out a glitchy CMTS and a few line amps. Problems solved, and customers settled down all over. For the longest time.
So, back to the first part. I called the sales lead and talked with him of how he could sell a defective product, how word of mouth and lax service repairs plagued his company. And how going to the competitor just looked too good considering it was a only little more a month. And how it's pretty sad when customers who are so fed up were getting satellite Internet installed. How people having their VOIP service were taking my advice and going to Vonage.
His respones? "Well maybe then you had better go to Tri County Connections".
That was sweet. I wonder if his call was being monitored for quality assurance.
