15 Year Contract/Fiber Optic

Started by FredN • 8 replies • 1774 views

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FredN (California)
Posts: 87

Posted:

Would anyone agree to a 15 tear contract for fiber optic installation in a 200 unit complex?????? Free Installation but,,,,

Do companies own areas for life??? Anyone know about this??

Thanks

RichardP13 (California)
Posts: 3,868

Posted:

Fred

The governing documents would first need to allow the association to enter into multi-year contracts. Some will have a clause stating for utilities it's OK as long as they are regulated by the PUC.

Would I? If the price was right and it had a substantial benefit to the owners, I would consider. I wouldn't be really too concerned about the ownership of utility lines as when one company is bought it would just transfer services to the new company. It would be one thing residents are always going to need in one form or another.

KellyM3 (North Carolina)
Posts: 2,239

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By FredN on 02/02/2016 7:24 AM
Would anyone agree to a 15 tear contract for fiber optic installation in a 200 unit complex?????? Free Installation but,,,,

Do companies own areas for life??? Anyone know about this??

Thanks

No. Think of where cable TV has evolved since 2000. Negotiate.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Fred,

Fiber Optics don't mean better service.
Fiber Optics do allow for greater bandwidth in a smaller circumference cable (wire).

However, the company who owns the fiber still has to have additional equipment and infrastructure to utilize fiber optic circuits to their full potential. If all I did was run a land line phone down fiber circuit would you claim fiber was worth it?

Check out the company.
Search for complaints on the internet (just take the complaints with a grain of salt but look for common threads). Are there tons of complaints about slow speed or poor customer service? Do you want to deal with that for 15 years?

JonD1
Posts: 2,350

Posted:

Fred

Do you currently,have another provider serving your property? As this would be in addition to their service? So the owners would have the option who to use?

We have had cable for 30+ years. Few years ago Verizon approached us about installing their new fiber optic service in addition to our cable service.
We met with the reps. And they agreed to pay us $100 for each unit where they installed their equipment. Which left a small box in a closet of the unit which could be used or not by the resident.

I believe that agreement ran for 10 years and we were paid just over $13,000. When that agreement ran out they renewed it with another payment of $10,000. Found money for the property to add to your accounts.

Hopefully, if this goes through you have someone overseeing the installation as to how and where it is run around the property. Where they dig, how they enter each unit, times of installations, where in the unit is best for their equipment, and such.

We had quite a bot of input which in the end worked to our advantage and made the installation as easy as possible.

As they have now potential customers it would make sense that comes with a cost to them.

Can't hurt to ask and if they agree to pay a fee might make the decision easier.

Good luck. I would not entertain allowing this for nothing. Trust me there is effort involved despite their claims it will go easy as pie.

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

JonD1, almost the exact same thing took place for us a couple of years before we moved from NY to FL. I would want some sort of escape clause triggered by the sale of the fiber assets. Verizon promised the moon with their fiber buildout and has basically stopped deploying it. Their long-range plan seems to focus on the more profitable wireless industry segment and it's not inconceivable that they will be looking to jettison their fiber infrastructure at some point. If they were to sell or abandon their fiber infrastructure then I would want that to be a trigger for getting out of the contract.

Maybe FredN isn't talking about Verizon, but it doesn't matter who the provider is, the entire industry is moving in the same direction as Verizon.

FredN (California)
Posts: 87

Posted:

Thanks all

Its ATT, Verizon is not in this area. They are over a few towns away. We have the big ugly cable boxes all over, wires all over.

Options are good for the community.

They say it increases property and rent values, but.....

I will look into it, they would install everything for free, Id prefer the 100 per unit option.

Time to investigate....

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Fred,

I have serious doubts about this merely because it is a long-term contract to supply technology. Look back 15 years.

In 2001, I used a 56K dial-up modem before going to DSL. Those were hot set-ups in those days but today I have cable internet with a download speed of 113 million bits per second and my very own wi-fi.

Fifteen years ago my hard drive was measured in kilobytes; today it is terrabytes. Back then, a CD-ROM was the storage device of choice as it held something like 650k bytes. Today I can plug my 32-megabyte memory stick into almost any USB port.

I used to have a fax machine (remember the 1980's and 90'?) plugged into my home phone line. I no longer have a phone line - we went wireless several years ago. I still have printers with built-in fax machines but I have no desire to ever send or receive a fax ever again. Email works so much better.

My point is that what seems like a good idea today may be a really bad idea in fifteen years. I would avoid any contracts that lock you into a particular technology for more than a few years.

JonD1
Posts: 2,350

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By FredN on 02/02/2016 6:15 PM
Thanks all

Its ATT, Verizon is not in this area. They are over a few towns away. We have the big ugly cable boxes all over, wires all over.

Options are good for the community.

They say it increases property and rent values, but.....

I will look into it, they would install everything for free, Id prefer the 100 per unit option.

Time to investigate....

Fred

It was NOT either or. They covered the entire cost of installation on equipment into units AND paid the association $100 per unit.

It cost the association nothing, gavecthecowners anothercoption and paid us $13,000.

As to technology changing the providers would be inclined to update their services to remain competitive. If they offered a less desirable product
It would be a bad business decision and cut their customer base.

Good luck.

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