Well after almost 20 years, my gig as a Network Engineer at Charter Communications has come to and end...  
My team and several others scattered around the country were all told we had to relocate to Denver (Fiddlers Green) Colorado or be let go...   Out of the 12 or so people on my team, only two are making the mvoe, the rest have already jumped ship or are holding out too see if they get a severance package...

For many reasons, my family and I chose not to go, so I saw an opportunity and took it...  

It really sucked to leave my job as I had been there so long and had worked my way up the ladder pretty far I felt I was making decent money (maybe not what some of you make, but I was OK with it) and decent bonuses......   

Down here in Fredericktown, there is just not much in the way of jobs....   So I took a position with a small Rural ISP that does Wireless Internet...  I'm only making maybe 20% of what I was making, plus no Benefits, 401K or anything...   

Aside from the lower pay, the new boss is really cool, everyone at the company I've met so far is really cool...  My office is 3.1 miles Door to Door, I'm not (at least at this point) working 2 Shifts a day and today, the boss/owner gave me the OK to carry in the office/On the job...

Hopefully, I can learn this RF/Wireless stuff well, help the company improve some processes and grow in size and revenue...  

When I started at Charter, we only had a T-1 and 125 Cable Modem customers in Missouri and Illinois... 
Now there are 20+ sites in those 2 states each with 2-6 CMTS chassis, each chassis with up to 30K customers on it.

man if they are doing that why do they have job opening in STL listed? also, I know of a few openings (I'm the Lead network Engineer at First Bank)

The recruiter that got my foot in the door has an opening if you are interested PM me your email and I'll send it to him.

Also, i hate charter, they refuse to extend service 3000 feet to my house, they claim the cable has to go unground (in the foot or less of topsoil we have) for reliability yet the cable is above the ground for 4 miles down the county road.

seem like you are fine but if i took an 80% pay cut I would be in ruins!

I hope it all works out for you.
A 3mi. commute is pretty nice though.

Good luck. Scary starting a new job after 20yrs at the old one. As long as you don't have younger kids dependant on your income you will be fine.

Sorry, was away for a few days...

Yea, they don't know what they are doing...  They keep having hiring fairs in all these cities, but to be in the DOCSIS Core or Acess Engineering groups, you'll have to relocate to Denver...  Last week they has a fair in Chicago...  
Either way, with my old job, I could work from home 24/7, with anything new (IF it was available), I'd have to move back to STL, I live way to far out for their on calls...

I know what you mean about their installs/Serviceability BS...  I can go to the bottom of my driveway look up the road and see an 8 Tap with Multiple open ports and I was told before I bought this place, OH sure, we can get cable in there not an issue...  Buy the house, call to get cable put in, as an employee, it was going to cost me 25-35K. Mostly, because there are no poles on my street and there was an underground bore and street crossing...

I'm hoping we can make it on what I'm doing now...  I want to stay out here and not deal with the city, but it comes at a huge cost too though...

yea, I'm diggin it so far...  Less than 10 mins drive each way.  I come home for lunch (to save $$$) and to let the dogs out most days...

yea, I really feel like a new guy...  The new gig is dealing with Wireless and towers vs everything hardwired Cat5 and Fiber, also the Topology is completely different and so is the gear...  Its almost like I'm starting over...

We've only really got 1 part time dependent... My girl has a 13 year old that we have split (every other week) custody of...  
Things will be tight....  No more Larue builds, with Night Force Optics.. But, If I can keep what we got going down here I'll be happy..

Wireless internet is taking off down here as the big boys don't view rural areas as profitable.  

I know Aptitude out of St. Francois County is throwing up towers as fast as they can.  I use their service and have been pleased.  I know Invisalink is about the same and I'm sure they'll see continued growth.  Big River Broadband can suck balls.

I hope it works out for you man.

I need internet at my house.....

Can the wireless technology compete w/ Charter and AT&T in urban/suburban areas?  

I used to work for AT&T and don't like them or Charter.  Would love to have an alternative here in StL county.

I working on that, but we do not as of yet have a tower out that way....  I know there are 4 or 5 new ones in the works, but not one close enough to your place..  I doubt it will be real soon..  If you text me your address and email, I'll put you in the system as a ""Potential Customer" and it'll put a Dot on our map, where your house is, showing you want service...  Thats how we plan where were are building next.  Where ever the Dots are and we can secure a spot for the tower...


You are right about the Big boys not wanting to build in the really Rural areas... 
The customer density or "Home Past Per Mile" is not great enough to get any kind of ROI and the maintenance costs are too high vs the Revenue generated...  If you put 3-4 houses in between each of the houses as they sit, they'd be interested.

Also, I've heard good things about Aptitude and horrible things about Big River, from  ALOT of people...

ehhh, Depends on the type of Wireless they are doing...  The kind I work for uses unlicensed frequencies towers and gear (much cheaper) but have/offer lower bandwidth speeds. 

They are really filling a niche market where there are no other options other than Dish type crap.

Now Bigger companies like ATT and VZW that offer 4G and soon 5G LTE, they could kill it, if they would cut off the metering/Throttling and give unlimited, like the smaller services like us do.... 
With us, you could Stream and download  4000Gigs a month and never run up your bill or get throttled...  With ATT or VZW, they'll either shut you down to really slow or you'll get a massive bill...

With us its all you can Eat!!!

Check http://aptitudeinternet.com/

I don't know where you live but Aptitude has pretty good coverage in St. Francois county.  I have it and while its not the fastest, it is pretty nice.  If you are in Madison county, check with smullen's company.  Hell, now that I know an insider, I may have to get internet at my place in Madison county.

Sweet. I'll check into that.

Years ago I had one of the satellite providers come out and they said I had to much tree coverage.... maybe these guys will be different.

Did you know a Chris Tyler?