Seattle Broadstripe customers, many of whom are on Beacon Hill, are encouraged to attend the second quarterly meeting between Broadstripe, the City of Seattle Department of Technology, and volunteer community group Upping Technology for Underserved Neighbors (UPTUN) this Thursday, June 24th, from 5:30 to 7:00 PM in the Bank of America Conference Room at Promenade Plaza, 23rd and Jackson.
UPTUN contends that Broadstripe services for customers in their franchise area are priced higher and are of lower quality than those offered by their competitors servicing other neighborhoods. (We imagine this is an opinion held by many neighbors.) UPTUN also describes a few less-direct effects that poor cable and broadband service has on a neighborhood: Tenants don’t want to lease and condo buyers don’t want to purchase when they find out they must use Broadstripe, negatively affecting vacancy rates; telecommuters and home businesses cannot count on Broadstripe to do their work; substandard services provided by the city and Broadstripe reinforce perceptions and stereotypes that the afflicted neighborhoods are of lesser value than others; and poor service through Broadstripe not only discourages families from moving in, but also provides an incentive to leave the neighborhood.
UPTUN’s quarterly meetings are held to ensure the improvements promised in the 2010 Work Plan are completed, and completed on-schedule.
Contact tracyb@uptun.org for more information.
I want On Demand.
Yikes – we have a pending offer on a townhouse in Beacon Hill and this is the first I’ve heard of Broadstripe. We haven’t been happy with Comcast but I would hate to think of having a service WORSE than Comcast!
Its pretty horrible. Its been a fiasco just getting them to get my internet speed up to 2/3 of the advertised speed. They seem to just kick the can down to the next guy that doesn’t know how to fix the problem but promises the other guy will. This went on for over a month and I decided to just give up and bend over. I’ve grown sick of sitting on the phone and their not respecting the inconveniences they have bestowed upon me and nitpicking the amount of credit due to me. And to top it all off their bills never make any sense.
After looking into this more on-line – we’re going to do everything we can to get another provider (maybe Qwest?) Broadstripe sounds terrible!
Qwest is probably your best option, if you don’t need cable tv. Qwest’s internet and phone service has been decent, but there are still issues with their billing.
totally agree on the billing. I can never understand what they are trying to convey on their bill.
If anyone wants to deal with red tape, you can contact Seattle’s Office of Cable Communications and complain. Sometimes they are helpful, sometimes not.
http://www.seattle.gov/cable/
Shanna, not all of Beacon Hill is Broadstripe — maybe you’ll get Comcast. Our neighbors a block away have Comcast, but we have Broadstripe. It’s kind of annoying.
Thanks everyone – I did call Comcast and they said they didn’t serve the location, but because it’s new construction they may not know they service it due to no history on the address. I hope the meeting tonight goes well!!
We’re looking to move to Beacon Hill from Cap Hill and I have to say, I already think the people in Beacon Hill are awesome. 🙂
I will say that, while I drug my feet signing up for Broadstripe because of all the bad word of mouth I’d heard online, that my experience with them hasn’t been too bad. The connection speeds are rarely what they advertise, but their customer service has been decent so far, and I’ve yet to experience the drops that I’ve read others complain about. I work from home too, so I’m online pretty much all day.
That said, I’ve only used them for the last 4 months or so, and don’t have Cable, just internet. I get the impression that they’ve improved things a little recently, probably because they now have Qwest barking at their heels.
Does anyone know how the meeting went? Was there anything accomplished or was it just a lot of empty promises on Broadstripe’s part? Every day I hear of new services and features Comcast is adding and yet Broadstripe has yet to even get up to par with a 2006 level product.
most of the things you read about are the bad not the good. i have yet had a problem with broadstripe and i have all three services. i have talked to a wonderful rep and she stated that there are many updates in the area to improve internet speeds. and for the video on demand, it is offered, however i was told that there are many issues with the services and are looking to expand the options with more on demand programing.