For those denizens of the CD who have high-speed Internet and cable service and who have suffered through Millennium Digital and now Broadstripe, what, if any, are the alternatives? The outrageous price, slow Net connection and crappy service that I get from them is driving me around the bend. I see that Qwest is aggressively offering bundled DSL/phone service but I wonder if that is appreciably any better.
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So I tried to get Broadstripe to install cable service at my place, but apparently they’re only open during business hours, so I went with Qwest DSL. My honest experience has been that the Qwest service is equal to or better than Comcast, which was my previous provider when I lived in Fremont.
Other areas of the country that I’ve had Comcast service in (Washington DC, Philadelphia) have been equally as shabby and I’ve experienced generally more downtime with Comcast than any other provider I’ve had. Combine that with the vastly superior DirecTV service and Comcast’s increasing willingness to push the limits of the law in regards to data safety and privacy, and it became a genuinely enjoyable moment to finally rid my life of Comcast.
No cable. Earthlink DSL. Live at 20th/John
Service is very reliable and fast enough that 2 (sometimes even 4) family members remain happy.
Andrew
My neighbor has switched to Qwest and claims that the speed at least doubled. I did a test on my line the other day to test the MBps…I’m paying for 6MB…I’m getting 1.5MB with Broadstripe…
http://www.speakeasy.net (in the lower right hand corner you can test your connection speed)
Another avenue would be to barrage the Office of Cable Communications at the City with comments. I would AT LEAST like a choice of which cable company to use.
http://www.seattle.gov/cable/comments.htm
I also had to switch from Comcast to Broadstripe when I moved from Fremont to the CD. I thought Comcast was bad, but sometimes I can’t tell who is worse. It’s ridiculous that we have no choice in cable provider. Thanks for posting that link to Office of Cable Communications!
We’ve got speakeasy here at CDN world headquarters. It’s been good, reliable etc. The only downside is that I feel like we’re paying a lot for it: $142 for 3Mbps up and 1.5 Mbps down, plus a voip line. I was afraid that things might go down hill after they were bought by Best Buy, but so far it seems like the same company it’s always been.
We have qwest DSL and it is great. See my commnent on “Ghetto Vision” (Broadstripe) under the 4/7/08 police scanner report.
i hate broadstripe, formerly millenium. their service was awful….downright unacceptable. my boyfriend and i have moved from chinatown to the downtown waterfront to the cd, and we’ve been forced to used millenium. they simply didn’t offer any other type of cable/internet service in those areas. so we’ve had a long time to build up hatred for millenium. about 4 months ago we got completely fed up since often we couldn’t even get a web page to load since the connection was so slow. it was completely unacceptable, esp since i have a second job where i work from home, which requires an internet connection. after assessing our options, we decided to go with qwest broadband…it’s pretty much the same price as millenium’s cable internet which we had before, but now we can log onto the internet, which is a plus. we’re paying for 5MB service, but i think we’re only getting about 3, which we will eventually call about, but for now i’m not really complaining.
also, we decided to stay with broadstripe for our cable tv plus hd channels since getting dish service was so expensive in terms of the start-up….the deposit and one-time fees were just too ridiculous, so we’re willing to stick with the tv since we’ve never had a problem with that, at least.
hope this was helpful!
we too are paying for 5-8 mbps and often getting about 1.5. On top of that – our service has been disconnected TWICE because of old accounts in our building, which is only a fourplex apartment complex. Or at least, we assume that’s why, when we call to be reconnected, Broadstripe won’t explain why they’ve disconnected us, and we end up practically begging for someone to come out and reconnect. If we try to complain, they threaten to send someone out “in two weeks or so”.
I’m a tech guy, so of course we wanted the best of all possible worlds when we moved to the CD two years ago. We decided to go with Broadstripe (then MDM) for television, and Qwest for our phone and DSL service. I wish Broadstripe had more HD programming, and that the digital compression sucked less, but for television without an ugly dish, it’s fine.
Qwest DSL has been ultra reliable, although I’m not really sure what my U/D speeds are. They’re certainly fast enough for some gaming and downloading.
What I’d really like is MS IPTV implementation, or Verizon FiOS to come around here, but that’s just a pipe dream, I’m sure. For the most tech-savvy city in the USA, we’re pretty slow with getting the cutting edge stuff.
When we moved into the neighborhood three years ago, I looked at Millenium’s website and was floored that they didn’t display their pricing and could only be reached during minimal business hours. I never considered them and instead went with DIRECTV, which has been great. The independent contractor they sent out for installation had to install a couple new jacks and vacuumed after himself. Vacuumed! We have lost signal only about once a year…way less than when we were with Comcast!
Qwest DSL is fine, I haven’t looked at the speeds, but I have no trouble watching tv shows on hulu or youtube or downloading.
Until recently, I served as a member of the Seattle Citizens Telecommunications & Technology Advisory Board (CTTAB) whose city representatives are Tony Perez and Jill Novik, both of whom work for the Office of Cable Communications. Call either or both of them and they will help. Believe it or not, they listen. And, they have the power to force Broadstripe to refund money if they do not meet their service level agreements or have poor customer service.
Personally, I use DirecTV for the TV stuff and Speakeasy for network access. If you live near 27th & Union, look for a wireless network ‘centraldistrict.net.’ It’s free for community access and part of the Seattle Wireless Network project. If you find you use it a lot, please consider donating as much and as often as you can to help with costs. Currently I provide the service at my own expense.
I tolerated them for about 2 months then went with Clearwire ISP and DirecTV.
I love them both.
Broadband in the US is pathetic as it is but the level of service provided by Broadstripe (Millennium) is ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL. What makes this even more depressing is that I got far faster speeds back in 2001 when I started as an undergraduate living on the UW campus. Fast forward to 2008 after 7 years of blistering technical advancement and, thanks to Broadstripe, it’s still a struggle to get a consistent 1.5Mbps DOWN, 384kbps UP.
I would love to SHUT THIS TERRIBLE COMPANY DOWN.
Millenium, now Broadstripe, is just the worst ISP I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. First and foremost, the speeds are not even close to as advertised. The fact that I have no choice in the matter makes it all the worse. Their service is lacking as well – really short hours, NO ONLINE BILL PAY WTF, poor channel selection/pricing (which is why I do not have cable), the list goes on.
Jill will be hearing from me, thx 27th.
Wow, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a thread on CDN generate so much fire so fast! I have to chime in too. I have had broadstripe/milennium for a few years, had Qwest before that. Gotta say I hate them all. Any time I’ve had an issue that required dealing with a tech it was a disaster. They tried to install my cable to a neighbors house one time. Disconnected me once when they mixed me up with a non-paying customer. I wasted a vacation day babysitting an idiot tech once too. Etc. Totally lame. However, on the plus side, the cable internet works for the most part, and doesn’t have intermittent connection problems like I had when I was with Qwest. But I can’t stand how expensive they are and the speed isn’t great either. So, there you go.
So it seems most of us agree that Broadstripe (formerly Millennium) is lame, but what can be done about it? The city has essentially split Seattle into two cable franchises — Comcast and Millennium. Depending on what part of the city you live, if you want cable, you have NO choice in the matter. You will deal with one or the other. As a previous poster said, IPTV or Verizon FiOS in this neighborhood is just a pipe dream (would require digging up the streets to install fiber-optic cable). We can keep complaining to the Office of Cable Communications, but I don’t see that the city will change its way of awarding franchise agreements.
Well is it even possible to open up the broadstripe-only market to comcast, and vice versa? At least then broadstripe will be forced to up their quality and lower prices or step out. As bad as my comcast experience has been they were a step above broadstripe in nearly every category.
There was some bill being tossed around with the FCC about opening up single-ISP apartments and dwellings to competitors as well – I wonder what the current status of that is.
speakeasy. i’ve had nothing but bad experiences with both comcast and millenium, and would rather my money goes to support a seattle company anyway. small business phone service > http://www.digitalbusinessphonesystem.com/
works for us
Oh, and it’s portable, too.
…here’s their new story…
Apparently in our “node” (the CD) a large piece of equipment failed a while back and they have been waiting to fix it. The equipment is supposedly going to be delivered and installed next week…they claim this will solve the problem. They are also working on refunds for he past several months for those in our area.
PLEASE CALL BROADSTRIPE AND REPORT YOUR PROBLEM…800-829-2225 (maybe this will get them out faster) There’s also a huge possibility that this was a lie!
I encourage everyone to write [email protected] who is a VP of their ISP operations, and the city (email addresses can be obtained here: http://www.seattle.gov/directory/section.asp?ID=2118). I’ve had horrible experience with Broadstripe, just like everyone on the thread. I’m at the point where I don’t know what else to do, other than write to as many officials as possible. I recently measured the performance of my network, and on average I get 150-200kbps speeds, not even 10% of their promised 6Mbps, for which I’m paying. You can also easily see that their incompetence extends to other areas, like cable operations. Just go to http://www.whereishd.com and compare the number of HD channels offered by Broadstripe vs. other providers. They offer 14 channels vs. Comcast’s 32 and DirectTVs 80+. At the same time they charge as much as Comcast.
Speakeasy just resells Qwest service
My name is Tom Martinson and, I am the VP of IT/ISP services for Broadstripe. I have read the postings and I would like to invite anyone that has an ongoing issue, to please drop me an email. Please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you,
Tom Martinson
VP IT/ISP Services
Broadstripe
[email protected]
Tom Martinson
Why should anyone contact you. You read the comments what are you going to do immeadiatly! Why don’t you and your ghetto vision company give up your franchise and let a decent cable company come in.
Why not, because you have a captive audience and you do not have to do anything.
If are really interested in changing, state what you are going to do and give a schedule as to what and when and the community will decide if they are going to lobby the city council to get rid of you.
Asking people to contact you is a ploy to prevent a groundswell of residents to band together and communicate with each other for a solution because of similar experiences with your ghetto rip off service.
So how did you find this site?
I was just distubed by a man claming to work for Broadstripe at 6pm sunday evening. He said my cable had been left on and it wasnt my fault. He then turned off the my cable. What kind of company sends people out at this time on a sunday. But is not in the office to take call for verication. The man was rude and pounding on my door and informed me in a flippent way that he works everyday. Im not even a coustomer and I got terrible service. Their loss I am awiting the instalation of my dish. And to the man from the company..when I gooled you all that came up was complaints. Not a address or a number..give a try…just=complaints
Hi Tom – I would also like to know what exactly you plan on doing? What is the future of Broadstripe?
Can you confirm/deny the “node” problem stated above? Our speeds have been lackluster at best for over a year now, and frankly we are at wits end on what to do with it. As you can see people are upset with the level of service you guys have been providing.
Give us some information.
I agree with all of the above on how lame Broadstripe has been as far as cable offerings and internet connectivity. I decided that before I cancelled my service, I would email Tom Martinson to see if he would even respond. He emailed back immediately, and the next day sent out a technician to replace my modem. My internet is now working perfectly. Martinson then called me back last night to make sure it was continuing to work. Also, Broadstripe has apparently just completed a big repair which should improve Central District service. I have no idea if that’s true, or if my internet connection will remain good. This is by no means an advertisement for Broadstripe. But I will say that I was very impressed with the immediate, personal response I got to my complaint.
On May 5, 2008, I called the Broadstripe customer support line to cancel my cable/internet service because I was moving to a new condominium that is not longer a part of your service area. As far as I was concerned at the time, the cancellation completed successfully. About one week after the call, I returned the cable modem at one of your service centers. Once again, as far as I knew at the time, everything went smoothly and without error.
Imagine my surprise, when I discovered at the beginning of June, that rather than refunding any remaining credit on the account, Broadstripe had charged me for yet another full month of service. Needless to say, I immediately called in to inquire about the billing error. I was told by the agent that when I cancelled my service, somebody had neglected to cancel the automatic billing. Let’s not even get into the basic process and system failure that results in a customer’s billing to continue even after service has been cancelled. Mistakes happen, so I kindly asked the agent to remedy the situation. I was told that a refund would be promptly processed.
Two weeks after the call, I still had not yet received my refund in the mail, nor had a credit been issued on my credit card. I called in yet again to get a status on the refund. A gentleman told me that refunds are only processed once a month during the billing period. I was told to expect a refund check on my next bill. Still very accepting of the situation, I told the agent that this situation was really due to an error on Broadstripe’s billing process. I also inquired on whether or not I can simply get a credit back on my card rather than a refund check. He told me that Broadstripe does not have the capability to post a credit back on the credit card, and that the billing cycle refund check is simply company policy.
My billing statement arrives several days later.. still no refund check. Several days after that, a full week after my previous call, I call Broadstripe customer support for a fourth time regarding the same cancellation request. Hopeful about a resolution, I explained my situation to the agent over the phone.. including the part about how Broadstripe made a billing error. The agent told me that according to her records, the service was just disconnected recently (within the last week or so). I told her that it was impossible because I had called to cancel my service at the beginning of May. She indicated to me that although I called to cancel in May, Broadstripe had been busy and unable to send a technician out to physically disconnect the service until recently. She further explained that according to policy, regardless of when the customer called to cancel, refunds are issued three to four weeks (or was it four to six weeks) after Broadstripe disconnects the service. ***Understand that at this point, I am resisting the overwhelming urge to point out exactly how brainless this policy is. I will also point out that I am resisting the compulsion to wish the person responsible for conceiving of such a policy to have a large nuclear warhead shoved up his/her ass.*** This is the point in time where I finally began to get frustrated with the whole process. I told the agent that it really is none of my concern that Broadstripe was unable to get a technician out to disconnect the service. The fact is that I cancelled the service over a month and a half ago, during which time Broadstripe continued to bill me erroneously. The situation is completely unacceptable. The agent then proceeded to reiterate the fact that this is policy and there’s nothing she can do about it. I asked to speak to a supervisor. After telling me that the supervisor would tell me the same thing, the agent begrudgingly arranged for a supervisor callback. I was not given any timeframe with which I should receive a callback.
Call five occurred several hours later when I realized that I had still not received a callback. Of course I called back to explain the situation to yet another agent. Not that I expected anything different, but I basically heard the same policy mantra that the previous agent had so kindly provided me. Surprisingly composed after the number of senseless interactions I have had concerning the same issue, I insisted to the agent that this issue has been ongoing for over a month and that the situation was urgent. She assured me that a supervisor will call me back on the same day, despite a 24 hour callback SLA policy.
Call six. Let’s fast forward to the end of the day, when I had not yet received a callback. Quite frankly, by this time, I had already forgotten how many prior conversations I had with Broadstripe’s elite service agents. More explaining of the same situation. More reiteration of the same company policies. After much bickering, the agent said she might be able to get somebody to refund my credit within ten business days. Imagine how completely ecstatic I was. Just ten business days to return to me what is rightfully mine. I must have had the “expedited” service for being such a great customer. I proceeded to tell the service agent how incredibly helpful she was, and scuttled along my merry way.
Now my point, six calls, one email, and almost two months later.. how are you still in business? Are you actually gaining or even holding market share in Washington? I am not one to profess my love for Comcast, but after this incident, I think I’ll take my chances with the evil corporate monopoly. If people don’t get exemplary service with your company, what are we left with? Certainly not the most advanced cable television service or high-speed Internet infrastructure in the area..
I have had nothing but horrible service from BroadStripe. I’ve just contacted Tom Martinson and will follow up if I get a response. Has anyone else been assisted by contacting him, or anyone else at BroadStripe?
The speed is ridiculously slow, sometimes crawling to a glacial pace before jumping back up to ‘normal’, i.e. a snail pace. Nowhere near the advertised rates and nowhere near the national standard for “hi speed”. I just wish there were another option.
Bad infrastructure, bad customer service..
Good luck getting their advertised broadband performance at ANY time of day. Forget peak hours and non-peak hours. The nights are as bad as the days. I consistently get poor quality streaming video from Netflix.
As for customer service, hope you never plan to cancel. If you ever cancel they’ll continue to bill you AFTER the cancellation until you call in AGAIN to tell them to stop the billing. You’d think that cancelling the service means, you automatically cancel the billing as well. Apparently that’s not how they work.
Oh and getting your refund after cancellation? Don’t even think about it. To them, the cancellation date is when THEY send a tech out to physically disconnect the service, not when you call in to cancel. In my case, it’s been 2 months and I still haven’t gotten my refund. That’s after 6 customer service calls, mind you..
I love my service with Broadstripe! I have issues here and there but not definitely not something to die or cry over. Too many time people have time to yell & b*tch about service or go make such a forum like this one but I took time off today to tell them how wonderful of a job they have been doing (yeah for me!). Very rare that people take time to compliment a company but if its a complaint, no hesitation to call immediately, start yelling and complaining. I am just thankful for them doing their best upgrading our area to broadband. Anything is better than dial up. Thank goodness! I love the service and the packages (cheap and affordable) and willing to work around my situations when I need to make changes. The customer service is awsome-they make you feel at home. Too bad you guys had such a bad experience.
It’s easy to say nasty things, but definitely hard to just take 5 minutes out of your time and compliment how wonderful a company is doing whether if its your cable company, phone company, or a store clerk down the road working at a gas station who was very polite.
If there were anything good to say about Broadstripe then I’d say so. I guess they were banking on their customers being dumb and not knowing how to complain or what to do. I’ve gathered months of proof of our lack luster service. I’ve contacted the Seattle OCC and will be contacting the BBB and possibly looking to file a class action lawsuit if need be. My ultimate goal is to run this company out of business so no one else has to suffer like we have.
Why are the residents of the CD paying over $50.00 close to $60.00 for basic extended cable service in the CD because at one time the CE was over 80%Afician Aermican and noone cared if we were being overchared. Our complaints to the City Council were dismissed. The City needs to change policy and allow cable competition in the CD. Residents of the CD need to Fight for cable chocies with the same vigor as they did to get rid of Dino’s. One of the best things that came with genification. (By the way Africian Americans had been trying to get rid of Dino’s for DECADES again our cries for the same level of service from the city extended to other neighborhoods were dismissed. I have been without cable for 2 1/2 hours Sat Oct 11, 2008. I contact Broadstipe and was told from a rep with attitude that yes we know it is out and basically I am annoyed that you are calling. I have been answering phones from your area for 20 minutes. Lets start a neighbood citizens committee to get rid of this monopoloy.
If I didn’t have a 5year plan that gave me all the Channels “Preimum Also” with internet for $126.00 a month I would have left this company along time ago. I feel sorry for the new people who have to pay Trump Up charges… Im at the point almost where paying for Qwest for internet might be a opption and just unplugging broadstripes internet from my computer lol..
We just moved back to the neighborhood. I used to live here about 6 years ago. MDM or Broadstripe is still as bad as they used to be. I feel like I was spoiled to have Comcast for the past 6 years. What is up with Broadstripe? Why wont the city of Seattle allow Comcast to come in? We feel like we’ve been thrown back 10 years in the technology department! After 1 week we’ve already gone through two boxes, the channels below 100 are so crappy it’s like watching a youtube video blown up on a big screen – grainy, digital interference, low quality, the boxes don’t recognize surround sound, the HD box doesn’t have an HDMI connection, the internet is slower than slow, there are barely any channels compared to comcast, they repeat the same channels three times – 4, 44, 704, and yet we are paying around the same price as comcast with a 13 month commitment. We live in a condo complex that doesn’t allow dishes to be installed, however, I may bring up the city regulation that states we do have that right. Unfortunately we don’t have a south facing deck… So what do we do?? How can we get the city to dump broadstripe? Comcast did have it’s issues but NOTHING like this! Nothing like this. Wow. HELP!