iProvo D-Day Arrives with Deafening Silence

The deadline for Broadweave's takeover of iProvo has come and gone without much news or fanfare at all. In fact, other than the phone customers from Mstar, we don't know if any transition has taken place. Neither the Daily Herald nor Deseret News could reach Broadweave for comment and I know that Joe Pyrah has been trying for about a week. Broadweave's website also lacks updates on the current status of the transition. Either one of two things has happened: the sale still isn't finalized or the transfer has gone over so seamlessly that nobody noticed. Anyone care to shed some light on it? (Free tip: when the press is trying to get a hold of you, get back to them quickly. Not responding to a reporter looks really bad.)

Visitor comments on the phone switch have been mixed. One commenter reported a significant degradation of call quality after the switch and blames Veracity's phone switch, one that he alleges to have had problems for a long time now. On the flip side, multiple comments have indicated that customer support is substantially improved and it's easy to reach someone with questions via phone or e-mail, certainly an area where Mstar received a lot of harsh criticism. Certainly the ability to accomplish the emergency port of 1200 numbers was impressive.

I think the real test of the transition will be when the video customers are cut over. Four of the iProvo NOC technicians left prior to the sale being finalized and Veracity is primarily in the voice and data business. Broadweave doesn't bring a lot of in-house video experience to the table either with just a small pilot operating in the Sienna Hills subdivision of Washington City. A lot of complaints about the system video centered on advanced features such as VOD, HDTV and DVR, areas where rapid improvement will need to be made.

Comcast has already been attempting to capitalize on the uncertainty of the transition and if they can push those missing features via their own products, don't doubt that they will. Several commenters have reported receiving promotional offers in the mail pushing triple-play with a DVR for $70/mo for 6 months. Ads have also appeared in the Daily Herald to entice business-class customers, the most lucrative accounts, into switching to Comcast. Given the lack of notice from Broadweave about the switch and the somewhat confusing pricing information concerning package pricing, Comcast may have a winning bet with their FUD campaign.

As usual, any comments that fill in the gaps or relate user experiences are appreciated.

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6 Responses to iProvo D-Day Arrives with Deafening Silence

  1. Wishtobe Anonymous says:

    Broadweave doesn’t have their VLan up and running yet for data…that means all of the provo customers are up a creek without a paddle or Broadweave is going to have to start paying Mstar to help out with data. Video is not even close to transferring, what was Broadweave thinking???

  2. JeremyN says:

    I’m still getting close to 50Mb/s, far more than Broadweave is promising, so I would say the data transition has not happened yet.

  3. Jesse says:

    There’s a rumor floating around that the deal is about to collapse from the financing side. The speculation (and it’s entirely hearsay and rumor) is that Sorenson or its investors are having second thoughts and may pull out or reduce their commitment.

    I’m also hearing reports that the customer service experience has been very mixed. Some customers are reporting an inability to contact support and many are still not sure who to call. An anonymous commenter reported that calls to Mstar redirects to a message that all inquiries about iProvo should be directed to Broadweave, yet Internet traffic is still using Mstar’s network and the video lineup is still the same. Meanwhile, customers still have no idea what’s going on and are getting really nervous. Shouldn’t their PR person be taking care of this mess?

  4. luminous says:

    This whole thing has been rushed, They rushed the vote, They rushed/are rushing the switch over. They did not consider other options for the network, Its a wonder they have gotten this far into the situation. Hopefully the situation improves the people of provo deserve a good network.

    I wonder how many people have moved to Comcast, and Qwest due to these issues.

  5. JeremyN says:

    Frankly I hope the whole deal falls apart and reverts back to the way it was. I personally have been very happy with Mstar (I have internet only). I’ve had virtually zero down time, and blazing speeds and no need to call customer support. Though I will say they called me once, on a sunday afternoon no less, to tell me my plug that was powering my fiber box had come loose and I was running on the UPS power. Sure enough it had, I plugged it back in and wasn’t down for a second. Nice preemptive support if you ask me! I’d never get service like that from Comcast or Qwest, and most from the sounds of it, not likely from Broadweave either.

  6. Capt. Video says:

    I can confirm (at least on my service) no switch has taken place on the data or video. I’m still on Mstar for data and video. Veracity customers I’ve checked with report the same, even continuing on Veracity phone service. So little has changed at this point.

    It appears that none of the three iProvo engineers have joined Broadweave at this point.

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