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Internet blackouts in off-campus residences, particularly in major apartment complexes, have given rise to numerous student complaints to major Internet service provider Access Media 3.
However, Access Media 3 doesn’t have a building full of maintenance men to send to your apartment unit. It doesn’t have sensors to indicate service failure. It doesn’t even have a building for you to show up at, demanding your monthly bill be reduced for inconvenience.
In fact, you won’t find them any trace of them in Blacksburg.
Access Media 3 operates entirely out of Oak Falls, Ill., and has limited responsibility over technical issues that happen in the Blacksburg area.
According to Melissa Mercado, the marketing director of Access Media 3, few people know the media service provider industry operates essentially the same way for all companies: by using third-party companies to complete their fiber network.
Once installed, the fiber network becomes essentially a mainstay for all service providers in that area, and the service providers then partner with the third-party company, relying on that company to perform maintenance of the network.
So when Internet outages began at the start of this past semester, Access Media 3 heard all the customer complaints through their customer service center in Oak Falls, while having to rely upon its third-party company to resolve the issue.
“They had one piece of equipment that failed. It created a domino effect, and caused other equipment failures,” Mercado explained. “At the end of the day, the failure would have happened regardless of who the service provider was at the time.”
When asked for the name of the third party company, Mercado was unable to comment further.
The name of the unknown third party company in Blacksburg is not publicly available information. The company that had previously provided Internet service in Access Media 3’s current domain was NTC Shentel. NTC was not available for comments regarding the matter.
While the outages themselves have been a primary cause of negative student opinion of Access Media 3, others have also expressed discontent the exclusivity of Access Media 3’s service with many major apartment complexes in the area.
Various major apartment complexes currently maintain exclusive contracts with Access Media 3, making them the only service provider for the all units the complexes manage.
Nicholas Tully has lived in Terrace View for two years and has been dissatisfied with Access Media 3, having had better service in his hometown.
“I personally hate it,” said Tully, a junior public and urban affairs major. “I dislike the way you’re forced into it by contract here at Terrace View; you don’t have any other choice of Internet providers.”
Nicole Bowman has lived in Maple Ridge for the past year, and had a similar experience to Tully.
“They didn’t give us a choice; they just said that’s who provides it, so I guess we’re stuck with them, unfortunately,” said Bowman, a sophomore communication and English major.
While Access Media 3 has refused to provide the names of the apartment complexes they have exclusive contracts with, students have reported that Terrace View, Collegiate Suites, Maple Ridge, Hunters Ridge, Oak Bridge and University Terrace are among the apartment complexes that incorporate Access Media 3 into their leases.
No apartment complex has been willing to provide the length of their contract with Access Media 3. A source indicated that Terrace View’s contract would be up for renewal in July, though Terrace View’s management was not available to confirm this report.
According to Mercado, apartment complexes favor exclusive contracts for a variety of reasons.
“Some properties choose to only allow one because they get a break, and they are able to pass that along to the residents,” Mercado said.
Outside of outages, some students have also been unhappy with the quality of the provided Internet service. According to Tully, the advertised Internet speed at his apartment in Terrace View is misleading.
A version of this article appeared in the Feb 19 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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People complain, CT writes an article
It is the same thing every year.....
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People need to complain to their leasing companies so they don't renew the contracts when they're up. Make it clear that you wouldn't refer a friend to move there because of the obligation to work with a really crappy internet company. In the past two years I've called on 9 different occasions and left word to speak with a manager, they gave me a "ticket number" each time for my request, and every time I've followed up they couldn't pull up the ticket number. Not a single call back. That service is unacceptable. Especially considering how outrageous their prices are.
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actually if you live in one of those complexes you should try to move out and if you're looking for an apt ask about the internet and if there's only one provider look else where and tell the complexes no way with one provider.
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The solution is easy, don't sign a lease that makes you get NTC/Shentel/Media3. The apartments that require these are in the minority, so they would quickly get the message, and/or go bankrupt. Beauty of capitalism.
The only issue I see here, is that this is a lot of people first lease, and simply don't know the difference. When I signed a lease for my sophomore year I didn't think much of it. After hearing my friends (in Shentel buildings) complain about it, and witnessing the slow speeds myself now I get it.
Perhaps an awareness campaign to rising sophomores? haha, but seriously the off-campus housing organization should highlight in their marketing materials the importance of internet choice in your unit.
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"Customers can sign up to have their emails notified when outages do occur."
Does this Access Media 3 spokeswoman have any knowledge about how email works? How am I supposed to be notified of an outage when my internet isn't working to check my email? There are still people without smartphones or phones with email access. Furthermore, why would I need an email to tell me my service is out? Wouldn't I know about it? That is the most asinine comment I have ever seen from a spokesperson for a company.
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LoL. I agree, cant send an OUTAGE report by email is there is an internet OUTAGE!
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"“I personally hate it,” said Tully, a junior public and urban affairs major. “I dislike the way you’re forced into it by contract here at Terrace View; you don’t have any other choice of Internet providers.”"
That's interesting, considering when I was there I had Verizon Internet and Dish TV. I don't know about this service, but NTC used the cable lines. Verizon uses the telephone line and Dish Network uses satellite. Do your homework before signing a lease or making a comment to the media.
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Request a lease agreement audit. It is illegal in most states to require a lessee to utilize an individual utility or service provider unless using a different utility or service provider disrupts other services or causes damage to the property. The issue with these guys is they know they are going to fill up the beds because there is a shortage. Start a petition with all the people who hate service, gather a little money from each and hire an outside consultant to perform an audit of the management company. You will probably uncover much more than improprieties with AM3.
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Problem is, when we signed our lease to Terrace View last winter, they told us that the AM3 contact was expiring in July and they were going to switch to Comcast. Come July, they tell us Comcast has to install special equipment and it will be a few more months. After a few months, they tell us that they renewed the AM3 contract instead. They had no problem lying to us to get the lease signed, so be careful to do your own research on the matter.
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Ever heard of getting email on a phone? It could be useful to know when you're out that you might not have internet when you get home.
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Came here to say the same thing.... I used to live in Terrace View and we had Verizon for internet, this was 2010-2011.
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We had Verizon too in one of those complexes that had a contract with AM3/NTC and one day when our internet was acting choppy, we called Verizon but they wouldn't send in a technician because that was part of their "blackout zone" and when I asked them what it meant he essentially said they can't send someone out because they have to honor the contract. But they were ALL about coming to set it up for us...
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Suggestion for the future, don't ever rely on anyone to have something done after you sign (for any deal). If it's not in writing, it's probably not going to happen.
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Sigh. I made the assumption that high school graduates could discern differences in capitalization.
B = Byte b = bit
1 Byte = 8 bits
20Mb = 2.5MB
10Mb = 1.25MB
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