Cincinnati Bell Will Maintain iFiber Service

From the Middletown Journal

 

By Chelsey Levingston, Staff Writer 3:10 AM Wednesday, December 1, 2010

MIDDLETOWN — Customers of Innovative Fiber Optic Solutions LLC, a local high-tech communications and Internet service provider that closes today, won’t have to worry about getting disconnection notices right away, according to Cincinnati Bell Telephone Co.

Cincinnati Bell released a statement Tuesday saying it’s working directly with iFiber’s Butler County customers to maintain service in the wake of the company’s closing. The owner of Butler County’s 96-strand fiber optic ring, NORMAP Telecommunications, sold its “spurs” or fibers to Cincinnati Bell in mid-November in a court settlement. NORMAP and iFiber, formerly owned by the late Middletown businessman Perry Thatcher, were interrelated companies in the sense NORMAP owned the fiber optic ring that provided iFiber’s service.

Cincinnati Bell officials said they are willing to negotiate a new lease agreement with iFiber and that discussions are ongoing.

“Cincinnati Bell will not take any immediate action to disconnect fibers in the Butler County fiber-optic loop,” officials said in a written statement.

Full story here MiddletownJournal.com

My company has been a customer of iFiber since 2004. Yes they were a small company however Perry had the respect of the business community, a high level of integrity and a vision that the connectivity was essential to the region.   

This issue has less to do with Cincinnati Bell since they have agreed to keep the connection to iFiber and more to do with the Thatcher estate which in a brilliant move disposed to Normap (owner of the fiber) to Cincinnati Bell and appears to believe the company iFiber either has no value or too much baggage with the other partners. That being said they are entitled to handle the assets in any way they see fit. The problem is they left all of their clients in the dark and gave us a 7day window to find new service. Impossible. They have closed the doors and released the 3 employees within 7 days of sending a letter to my company via email. My request to the estate and the family is to maintain iFiber for at least 90 days so the clients can migrate away without loosing service for an extended period of time.
I am sure the business clients would be happy to throw a few bucks toward the estate to make this happen since we are the ones with the greatest amount to lose.

Amazing, when you think of PT you have to believe he always considered what his legacy would be, I am certain this is not what he had in mind.

Todd Fletcher wrote: The I-Fiber connection should stay on until March. But what Cincinnati Bell didn't point out is - they will NOT maintain the hardware/service for residential customers. As soon as there is a hardware issue, you are dead in the water and without service. I made numerous calls to Cincinnati Bell and got various answers including, you have nothing to worry about to we have no intention of providing service or support for residential customers. They can't even get their story straight amongst themselves. Nice - way to go Cincinnasti Bull! I have had Cincinnati Bell as my voice provider for many years. Needless to say I will be moving to another provider and I'll let everyone I know how Cincinnati Bell left us in the dark. I'm sure they'll laugh at the small number of people that discontinue their service.

Todd I have had the same issues with Cinci Bell in the past but sad to say it beats trying to deal with att,what ever happened to the concept of giving good service.

wth is this?