Internet choices for the greater Omaha area

[zippy]

Did anybody use a local bulletin board service called Probe.Net? It pre-dated WWW availability in the Omaha area and eventually included "experimental" access to the Internet. I feel like I had to visit their office near 108th and i to get a startup disc.

[ChadJK]

Did anybody use a local bulletin board service called Probe.Net? It pre-dated WWW availability in the Omaha area and eventually included "experimental" access to the Internet. I feel like I had to visit their office near 108th and i to get a startup disc.

I never used that one, but I used to really be into the local BBS scene in the early-90s. There were dozens of them.

[zippy]

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[remline]

I remember getting on some sort of pre-WWW system to access the Omaha Public Library card catalog. I think you could also place holds on books via the system. Does anyone remember more details about that?

[Dundeemaha]

My wife fondly remembers the OPL card catalog system before her family got Internet. She said that she definitely placed holds with it

[OmahaRedWing]

Was getting my haircut a couple weeks ago on a Saturday at my long-time salon Hair Etc. Their service from Centurylink had been down a couple days. They had a hard time getting answers and were finally told it wouldn't be fixed before the following Wednesday. Have no idea why anyone would put up with CenturyLink.

My office had them briefly and it was a disaster. We went back to Cox.

If I had issues with CenturyLink, I would look at alternatives...but probably not Cox. I'm in a cellular deadzone; one bar on my phone. Center of the neighborhood, too far from the antennas. But I've been on CenturyLink internet for over 20 years. It was really rough about 12 years ago before the Prism upgrade, but it's been super-reliable the last 10 years or so. I can think of two outages. I have a "price for life" from CenturyLink, and it's consistently lower than Cox's promo deals with usage caps.

CenturyLink's customer service is horrific, but my brief dealings with Cox have been almost as bad.

Had very few issues with Cox. The thing with them is, when I have had an issue I can always get someone from customer service on the line.

We just switched to Cox Mobile from Verizon (they use Verizon's network), got all new internet equipment, lowered all bill and we have no usage caps. So far so good but time will tell. Saved a ton between the switch to their mobile and the internet cost dropping.

[skinzfan23]

I thought about switching to cox mobile but with Verizon pre-paid instead. Maybe I should look back into the cox mobile.

[nativeomahan]

After being a loyal Cox customer for 32 years I took a chance and let a door to door sales guy for Quantum Fiber talk me into switching to Quantum. A good friend has had them for nearly a year and has experienced no problems, and my brother in law has had them about 9 months and suffered one 5 day outage due to a squirrel chewing through their aerial wire, but no other issues.
We got hooked up about 10 days ago with 500 Mb (same that we had with Cox), and added on a Directv $85/month streaming service with 125 channels including Hulu, Disney and ESPN. Other than some initial frustration and spending a couple of days reconnecting numerous devices to the new WiFi service, we have had no issues. I’m getting a bit over 500 Mb throughout my house and 100+ Mb on my patio.
Meanwhile, Cox, Google and who knows who else are or recently have been stringing lines and digging through our neighborhood yards like a hungry mole, installing their fiber systems.

[Ben]

Does anyone know the general timeline for once a provider has run their fiber through the neighborhood, how long until it becomes an available option? Clearly there will still be the house connect, but my understanding is that they do this on demand, once you sign up...
Google finished laying fiber on our street 2 weeks ago, but per their online checker, they still say "not available" at my address. Clearly there are still connections upstream that need to be established, but would have thought this would have happened already...

[Brad]

Does anyone know the general timeline for once a provider has run their fiber through the neighborhood, how long until it becomes an available option? Clearly there will still be the house connect, but my understanding is that they do this on demand, once you sign up...
Google finished laying fiber on our street 2 weeks ago, but per their online checker, they still say "not available" at my address. Clearly there are still connections upstream that need to be established, but would have thought this would have happened already...

They laid the main line along our street earlier this year and then a few weeks later came back and did something else. That said, our neighbors are just now starting to get service. I think running the line is just the first step in a 3 or 4 step process that has easily taken most of the summer in our neighbor.

[nebugeater]

Does anyone know the general timeline for once a provider has run their fiber through the neighborhood, how long until it becomes an available option? Clearly there will still be the house connect, but my understanding is that they do this on demand, once you sign up...
Google finished laying fiber on our street 2 weeks ago, but per their online checker, they still say "not available" at my address. Clearly there are still connections upstream that need to be established, but would have thought this would have happened already...

They laid the main line along our street earlier this year and then a few weeks later came back and did something else. That said, our neighbors are just now starting to get service. I think running the line is just the first step in a 3 or 4 step process that has easily taken most of the summer in our neighbor.

One date point. When Allo installed Fiber in our area in Gretna ,it was about three months before service was available after they were not seen in the area working daily anymore

[nebugeater]

Question for anyone who has recently moved away from COX. About a year ago, they moved away from having COX handle all email hosting and management. IT was all ported to Yahoo Mail while keeping the "Cox.net" All email managment is done vie Yahoo now

If you now leave cox are you able to keep the email address, or do you lose it after leaving, even though they do nothing with it now, so to speek

[nebugeater]

Question for anyone who has recently moved away from COX. About a year ago, they moved away from having COX handle all email hosting and management. IT was all ported to Yahoo Mail while keeping the "Cox.net" All email managment is done vie Yahoo now

If you now leave cox are you able to keep the email address, or do you lose it after leaving, even though they do nothing with it now, so to speek

I am asking becuase I see mixed answers on the net. They trend to "you keep it" when on Yahoo. Not a question I really want to call and ask COX because I will not trust their answer if it's "you keep it" with some recent experiences.

[WBR_Tom]

From personal experience, you get to keep the email. We switched from Cox to Allo about six months ago and no longer have Cox for anything. I fully expected my old Cox.net address to go away (to the point that I went through and updated decades worth of logins that used that address). But it turns out I can still send and receive from that old Cox.net inbox.

My assumption is that because they ported the accounts over to Yahoo and you're using Yahoo's email servers to send/receive (with Cox.net as a custom domain), it's not worth it to them to update the list of who should and shouldn't have accounts, especially since they no longer offer email to new customers (so there's also no need to send a list of people to add). Maybe it's just a glitch, and maybe they only update it once a year or something so it'll stop working in the next couple of months, but for now, mine works the same as it always did six months after canceling.

[ChadJK]

We've been using Great Plains Communications for Internet and telephone (yes, I'm a weirdo that likes having a landline) without a hiccup for about 9 months now. I've called them a couple of times with questions and they've always been extremely nice and responsive. YMMV.

[nebugeater]

After many years with COX, Allo will be installing service for me this coming Thursday

[DennyMarkham]

Centruylink fiber was great until the Quantum Fiber rebrand, at which point I started getting multiple small outages then they recently announced they're now part of AT&T, they're having a massive outage; I've had no internet since last Thursday, I was one of the 1st people to call to report the outage, at 1st they said they would send a tech over then realized I wasn't the only one and kept moving the service restoration goal post further. I've had enough and am switching to another company and dropping Quantum. YRMV but I heavily rely on a reliable fast internet connection and can't afford a 5-day outage. Starlink was my saving grace.

[skinzfan23]

Wow, thats crazy. Working from home, I have to have reliable internet. This is exactly why I am afraid to jump to some of these newer companies. Everything is great until it isn't. Their rates are great but from almost everyone I hear, once their is a problem, customer service is almost non-existent.

[DennyMarkham]

Wow, thats crazy. Working from home, I have to have reliable internet. This is exactly why I am afraid to jump to some of these newer companies. Everything is great until it isn't. Their rates are great but from almost everyone I hear, once their is a problem, customer service is almost non-existent.

If you have the funds, I highly recommend having backup internet service either with your cellular provider or some sort of satellite internet. I've made some calculations and I can afford $100/mo for internet max so I'm paying $50 for fiber and $50 for Starlink; good thing about Starlink is you can "pause" the service (still active for small data like SMS, emergency etc.) and reduce your monthly bill to just $5/mo which is what I had been doing. It took me a few mins to get on the app and reactivate the service until my new fiber service gets hooked up, at which point I'll pause satellite again. I've already been using my T-Mobile as a hotspot since 100GB data is already included as well and got a notification last night saying I'm almost at my monthly limit.

[nebugeater]

This is Gretna-specific, but it looks like another Fiber option is coming to Gretna

AT&T / Forged Fiber 37 just got approved by the Gretna City Council for instation

In my neighborhood, this will be the third option for Fiber

First was Allo. Know plenty that switched to this. I switched from Cox to this in January and wish I had done so sooner.
Not long after that, Great Plains Communications came in; I don't know anyone who has subscribed
Now At&T. Looks like they are trying to get ahead of some complaints that they know will be coming if the conditions the city put in place are upheld.

https://www.3newsnow.com/news/local-new ... 3B2DA-xLXA