Self Managed MDU?

[Jam3s]

Hi All! My wife works at a facility that has an MDU set-up that is just... well, bad. I've been there a couple of times, and nothing is really up to standard. I'm not an installer anymore (and don't want to return to that lifestyle), but I was talking with their building manager, and he said that aside from the frequent outages, it takes days, sometimes weeks for their MDU provider to come out and fix stuff, and that they've had a few situations where their bill wasn't being paid (they pay through their provider).

I was wondering if any MDU folks here have heard of a situation where an MDU account manages their own equipment without the overhead of going through a 3rd party. My plan would be to go out and get them up to code as a one-time favor, and then provide their maintenance team with the tools and training to keep things running.

They're a non-profit PT/Rehab that just keeps getting shafted by their providers, and that's not cool, on top of that, I'm sure they're paying entirely too much for the shoddy service they're getting through their contract with their MDU provider, so any help would be much appreciated.

 

[cinsu]

I know of several MDUs that are managed by O&O. Held to much higher standards of work and much larger availability for a tech when problems arise


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[Jam3s]

I know of several MDUs that are managed by O&O. Held to much higher standards of work and much larger availability for a tech when problems arise


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That might be a good option. I've got an appointment to talk to them tomorrow. I'd still like to see if there is a way that they can license themselves and self-manage. There's a small possibility I'll be looking at a job with them in the future with their parent corp. as CTO or something to that effect. Not that I don't absolutely love my current position, but if I could go in there and train their folks, rewire them up, and let them do their own thing, I think there's a lot of money to be saved in maintenance contracts, and it would boost my chances of impressing their directors... Then again, the DTVHS HQ is 1/4 of a mile from my office, and about 3 miles from the one in question...

 

[Zashel]

maybe some Polaroids in an envelope with the address attached to DTV's front door would get some action lol.

 

[Claude Greiner]

First of all the MDU dealer assigned to the account is getting 15% of the programming bill as a commission. Possibly more if they are billing the property directly.

They cannot license themselves as Directv has minimum activation requirements.

I would NOT clean up the system for free, as that's the responsibility of the MDU dealer.

If you want to manage it yourself, I don't see the dealer having an issue with it for doing something for free that they get paid to do.

I would go to the dealer and either...

A) negotiate a discount off the programming for managing the system themselves.

B) work a deal so the dealer can pay you for service calls.

The reason why it takes the dealer weeks to fix something is more than likely because they have no techs in the area to service the system and they either have to keep finding new techs, or getting techs that have to drive from 2-4 hours away.

I have been in this situation. It's not easy managing these types of systems, especially when you have an idiot technician that wants to get paid and does crappy work and just puts a band aid on the issue everytime they go out instead of getting to the root cause of why your having the issue to begin with.

 

[Claude Greiner]

maybe some Polaroids in an envelope with the address attached to DTV's front door would get some action lol.

They don't care, unless the system is down and the customer is complaining.

 

[Zashel]

They don't care, unless the system is down and the customer is complaining.

sounds like requently...

I was talking with their building manager, and he said that aside from the frequent outages