Just Why Are Those Trucks Rolling?

By Tim Hermes | Published: February 5, 2010

Sitting here in the office looking out at the street in my little Northern Virginia town – despite being three miles from the nations capital and all the attendant hubbub – not a heck of a lot happens here. In fact the most exciting thing I’ve ever witnessed from my home-office window is the time the neighbor across the street had a tree taken down and a horned owl flew out of it and landed on my roof.

And that was five years ago.

So what do I end up doing when day-dreaming (not that I ever do) while I watch my little neighbor go through its daily machinations? I count white vans. Namely the ones from my local cable provider and that of “the Big V.” Don’t laugh, it’s fun. At least for me. Especially when I see a lot more Big V vans on my street and notice they are spending a LOT more time at the homes they are parked in front of. But are they doing installs, or repairs? Ahhh, that was the big question…until of course I started reading my local neighborhood chat-room posts. And of course when I noticed that these vans from Big V tended to be parked in front of the same houses two, even three times in the span of a few weeks. (As a runner I tend to take the same routes when I run so I notice this stuff.)

Wow. That gave me a clear answer. Big V is rolling a LOT of trucks. The fact that my friend Pat, who switched to Big V in 2007, threw up his hands in frustration and told me he was switching back to cable also gave me a hint.

Meanwhile my happy cable triple-play connection hums along. My phone line always works (ok my son unplugged the modem for his Wii once.) My internet speed is crazy-fast. My picture is always clear, and most importantly I am pretty much guaranteed I’ll have a perfect picture at 6:30 PM Sunday for the Big Game. Now, Saints or Colts? Gotta stay neutral…BGR has advertisers and subscribers in both areas. But let’s hope for a great game won by a field goal in overtime.

Thanks to my provider, I am pretty much guaranteed I’ll see the game.

Tim Hermes is CEO at Broadband Gear Report. Email him at timhermes@comcast.net.

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