3/4/2020
The residents, students, and businesses of Sissonville, Kanawha 2-mile Road/Edens Fork and surrounding areas are being robbed!  Our internet provider is SUDDENLINK and we have very poor to no internet.  We continue to pay monthly bills, and get rate increases and in return, we have to deal with poor service and multiple outages. Rain, wind, and storms seem to be a major contributor to the problem. The community and its residents are suffering!

Some businesses have had to split their staff, sending half to Charleston to get internet and work from there, and half stay in the Sissonville office to tend to customers there. This is causing loss of revenue, stunting the grow of these businesses, handicapping our technological advancement, a major inconvenience and waste of time. Due to today’s growing technology, our children have a lot of technological advancements in school. There are several students at Sissonville High School who take Virtual and College classes which are online and they do from home. Due to the poor internet that we have, there are students who can not do their work from home. Therefore, after they are finished at school, they have to drive somewhere else in order to do their work. This is stressful and very inconvenient.

In an age where even the town 8 miles from us has Reliable High Speed Internet with 400mbps+ down and 100mbps+ unlink, while we are quite lucky to get 11 mbps down and 1mbpd uplink on a Good Day, this is inexcusable. We have been told that our speed is 2-4 times SLOWER than it could be and of our neighboring areas.

If this was the first time, it could be understood, even forgiven, but it is NOT!  This happened last week, 12 times in 2019, and 12 times in 2018. Based on the 6 outages we have experienced so far in 2020, SUDDENLINK is on track this year to double this average. This has to stop!  How can businesses grow or even stay in business? How can students learn, grow, and prosper in this day and age with internet problems like this?  We all depend and count on the Internet, high speed, and technology now a days. The only other internet option in our area is Frontier, and many experienced similar problems with them. I’m assuming because the plant needs upgraded and they are using old lines. 

Many people have been trying to work with Suddenlink to get this problem resolved for 1+ years with NO success. We have been told by Suddenlink tech/service men, that the Station that services these areas needs to be UPGRADED and NEW LINES ran, but that Suddenlink has no plans or intentions of getting this done. Some have been told that Suddenlink doesn’t think that it is worthwhile to invest in the town of Sissonville and that they find giving high speed internet access to Sissonville and surrounding areas a waste of their money. 
We, the residents, students, businesses, and work from home residents respectfully disagree!

By fixing the Internet problem, students will be able to do their homework more efficiently and without the unnecessary stress of having to pack up and drive somewhere to get internet. Businesses will function more efficiently and productively. Our community will prosper. 

By not fixing the internet problem, the entire community will suffer. School is stressful enough for our children, some more than others. They do not need any added stress, especially having to worry if the internet is working properly!

It is time to bring this fight to their door and not back down until they fix this disaster!  We are requesting everyone’s immediate attention and asking for your support to help us get a swift resolution to our internet dilemma.

Re: #Connect25312

There are 2 petitions circulating for better internet in Sissonville. �

One for Sissonville Residents ONLINE at: http://chng.it/ZxVnJmSyBF

One for businesses (on paper �, in our office at Ellis Insurance Agency). We also have a laptop linked to the online petition for residents to sign, here at Ellis Insurance. 

Please make sure you sign the correct one (or sign both if you are signing as a business AND a resident) so that the legislature, attorney general, and PSC will take our plight seriously. Thank you all so much for your support!

Thank you,

Sissonville Community

3/4/2020

#Suddenlink #Frontier #Connect25312 #SissonvilleInternetDisaster #CampaignForReliableInternet #SissonvilleIsGrowing #WeStandTogether