Community Post

Broadstripe says speed should be better now, more soon

Broadstripe General Manager David Irons, who was also on the discussion panel at last nights Let’s Get Connected event, said that his company is the middle of a major new investment in the neighborhood that will increase the broadband speed and provide more channels to cable customers.

Irons says that recent changes should already provide higher and more consistent speeds for customers with internet cable modems. He told customers last night that “you should be getting at least 10 megabits [per second] right now. If you’re not, give us a call.” Broadstripe customer service can be reached at 800-829-CABL.

An additional change coming by July will quadruple the amount of bandwidth into the Broadstripe network, and they’re planning an upgraded to DOCSIS-3, the latest, fastest standard for providing internet over a cable system.

The multi-million dollar program will also provide a rebuild of the equipment in the cable company’s head-end facility where TV and network services are first distributed out to the neighborhood.  That will provide the ability to deliver more channels to cable tv customers.

Broadstripe has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since early last year, after being sued by two other companies after the collapse of deals that would have sold some Broadstripe properties and acquired some others. Irons said that process is almost done, and the company expects to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of this year.

0 thoughts on “Broadstripe says speed should be better now, more soon

  1. Is this the same David Irons who has been involved in politics on the Eastside?

    How long can one company depend on holding the contract as the provided in any one area, forever? How does that work?

  2. According to Tony Perez, who runs the office that regulates cable service in Seattle, operators have an “assumed right of renewal.” i.e., unless they really screw up, they can stay forever. Broadstripe is in the middle of a 10-year franchise agreement that began in 2007.

    I also asked whether the city council could force Comcast to serve the entire city as part of their francise renewal in 2016. Short answer: no

  3. Broadstripe is absolutely the worst at customer service, tech support, and especially internet speed. I currently get about 3.9mbs. Where are the 10mbs to 20mbs we were promised? Although Comcast isn’t a whole lot better, I would take them any day over Broadstripe. Now my bills are going up as well.

  4. Just clocked my speed @ Speedtest.net.

    download speed: 1.59 mbps.
    upload speed: .32 mbps.

    Broadstripe is terrible. And I’ve been tracking the speed that they’ve been providing. The speeds listed above are _consistent_. This isn’t just because its 10pm at night and everyone is online.

    The City of Seattle needs to dump this company, stat.

  5. This made me curious, so I went to the speed test at Speakeasy ( http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/). My results:

    Download Speed: 12864 kbps (1608 KB/sec transfer rate)
    Upload Speed: 1426 kbps (178.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

    Now, can someone with more technical expertise interpret this for me? If my math is right, this is 12.8mbs download and 1.4mbs upload. I know the download is supposed to be higher than the upload, but is this a good ratio? Anyone else want to do the test to get a real picture of CD BS speeds?

  6. download 3.39 Mbps
    Upload .91 Mbps

    Yeah–looks like I will be giving them ANOTHER call. Why is it acceptable for all of us to have to wait this long…a year or two to get “better speed” (NOT). Why can’t the city just get rid of them…I bet noone who makes that decision lives in our neighborhood!

    Broadstripe is horrible, and there is nothing they can do now that will bring them close to what comcast offers. And there is nothing they can do to make me forgive them for the last 3 years.

  7. hell i would’ve stayed with them if I was getting anywhere close to your speeds.

  8. Read Scott’s comment above. The City *can’t* just get rid of them, unfortunately.

  9. While I’m glad to see Mr. Irons engaged, his statements about “all should get 10 m/b” just aren’t accurate. I’ve been recording screenshots nearly nightly from speedtest.net. From any period from 5 p.m. to around 2-3 a.m., (read: when everyone is using the network) speeds will max out at 2 mb, and are typically around 1.2 m/b. When I had a tech out roughly a month ago, he admitted that they oversold their services in the neighborhood. To quote: “when we started advertising 15 megabytes, everyone started signing up”, which is ironic – advertise higher, perform lower.

    Sure, during the workday (i.e. if i skip work to use my super fast connection), speeds are around 15 m/b, otherwise, they’re just as bad as ever.

  10. It’s pathetic that a city as “tech savy” as Seattle is in the morass of out dated technology when it comes to Broadband.

    I’m near the MLK/Yessler area and the “best” I could find was 5mbps from Qwest. I’m considering it lucky I seem to be able to maintain 3.7mbps down.

    But common. 5mbps is the “Best” I can be offered when I live less than a mile from the “downtown core”?

    This city needs a big game changer to shake things up. The incumbent companies have proven themselves time and again unable or unwilling to keep up with the times.

  11. I called tech support, speaking to them the expected speed is 6mb down/ .38 up, David should check his facts. In addition there are no “upgrades” to service in this area. Has anyone tried clearwire or perhaps getting a few blocks together to do a dish that is connected to the Westin downtown?

    It has to be better than this service….My speedtest showed 5.7 down and .33 up, pathetic in this age, ironically my 3g service from att responds better than my cable service.

  12. At 11 this morning, I got the following results:
    WUGNET: 1.76/.95
    digital landing.com: 4.061/.398
    pcpitstop.com: 4.391/.411
    I tried pitstop’s optimization program for $30; at 7 tonight, all the tests come out a little slower. Probably the time of day, but in any event the pitstop program doesn’t appear to do anything. Can’t explain the difference between sites, though.

  13. I would shy away from those programs, you never know what you will
    get on your machine. However if you are using wifi in your house and
    have a lot of Hotspots around, it might be worth testing with a direct connection
    first…

  14. With Clearwire, I’m getting 2.09MB dowload and .47MB upload (using Speedtest.net) for $30/mo.

  15. Interesting, I live in leschi west ridge and am getting 6 mb down and 384 up,
    I guess mt baker is a wealthier area so they’re you go ;)

  16. My Brownstripe speeds are 4.38 MBps Up, .38 Down. These are really good speeds but it’s also a beautiful day and tons of people are outside today so traffic is surely light. Brownstripe has never been honest and I was really bummed to hear a neighbor say their speeds are better than Qwest.

    There are three action items:
    1) Call the Office of Cable Communications and complain
    2) Call the mayor or council member
    2) Call Verizon and state we want FIOS and if they wire it, we’ll sign up- I will even if it is more money cause the service is supposed to be excellent.

    Make these calls on a weekly basis and maybe in a few years when can get FIOS here. The office of cable communications has told me our area is open to any provider and they are actively trying to get more providers. I doubt they are so pressure needs to be created from the mayor or city council.

    I agree it is disgraceful and a huge failure of this city to have such horrible providers serving this city in 2010.

  17. I live in the U District and have comcast – $49.99 / month :

    Down: 20.08Mbps
    Up: 4.52 Mbps

    Saturday 7:45pm

  18. Last night our connection dropped for 1/2 an hour. We can barely stream video. I seriously laughed my *&^ off when I read Broadstripes statement re: speeds.

  19. Qwest is rolling out FIOS around the Seattle area. I know some folks in Bothel who have it already. No info if / when they’re rolling out to our area in / around the CD. But, they already own wires running through here, so maybe more likely than Verizon.

  20. I have been living in the CD/Capital hill area since 2006. I hate Broadstripe. I tried Qwest they weren’t much better with the speeds. I hate that we can only receive such low speeds in a city such as seattle. Interestingly I just read an article that said that all the surrounding counties Snohomish, Pierce, and Thurston have higher internet speeds then us. I contacted Google and told them they should come here and give us fiber. Sometimes with Broadstripe I am lucky to pull up google web page in five minutes, and if you have had Broadstipe you know I am not lying. I have made a complaint to the AG since my complaint to the city of seattle went nowhere. I have been working with “Leon” in the local office here in seattle. Basically a month later no change in better service. I have had techs come out 10-15 times to “fix the glitch” and still modem goes off-line twice a week or more, cable has been tiling all weekend and the sound drops out to. I don’t know what to do but move back to the U-dist or somewhere were Broadstripe is not. Unfortunately I work at 6am on Saturday and Sunday and the bus’s that run that early will make me late to work every morning if I live somewhere else.

  21. I was “working” with Leon too and it produced no results and actually caused more frustration.

  22. Are we the only ones who receive our broadstripe bill four days before it is due? The bill is usually due on a Sunday and we usually receive the bill on the previous Wednesday, which of course makes it impossible for us to get it to them on time. If me mail our bill on Thursday, the day after we receive it, it is impossible for it to get to our self proclaimed local company in Baltimore, by Friday.

  23. Just tested here at home. 0.89 Mbps down, 0.39 up (speedtest.net). Broadstripe, not DSL. Of course, we can’t get Comcast; Clearwire has latency and reliability issues; DSL means we get to pay an extra $15/month for phone service we won’t use (no landline — cell phones only).

  24. It sucks that the city would allow this company to just sit on it’s hands and collect our money. Could a petition maybe force the city to look into alternative options other than brownstripe? There seems to be enough people. I live in an apartment in the international district and could probably get everyone in here to sign it. EVERYONE HATES IT. Outrageous prices on top of lousy service. FU

  25. This is the worst company I have EVER had to deal with on a regular basis; 6 years now. They have an exclusive contract with our condo building until the end of this year, when we are cutting them out like a tumor and getting Comcast.
    They are in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy since January 2009 (over 1 year now), they changed their name from Millenium Digital Media to hide from their horrible, well diserved, reputation, they serve only about 170,000 people total in the nation in 4 states with Seattle the ONLY MAJOR CITY they service. They are a conservative out of state company despite saying in comercials that thaty are a “Local Company You can Trust”, they ignore minorities and LGBT folks in their programming, let alone caring about the quality of service in Cable speed or TV cable programming being the least important quality.
    Their only hope is to have people sign up for “Broadstripe for Life” which is something akin to “Life in Prison with Solitary Confinement” if you ask me.
    I say this from the experience of someone who has dealt with them for 6 very long years, they are truly an incompetent careless company that should never have been given a second chance by the City of Seattle Office of Cable Communications and given a Franchise extension.
    Lets hope that they will just finish in Bankruptcy and go away wiht the Dodo birds and Dinosaurs. The whole Central Franchise area wants them, their out of date technology and especially horrible service level to just go away.

  26. This is exactly what I experience although during the day I only get 8mb and not the 16mb that I pay for. During peak I’m lucky to get 1mb its usually .6mb