NORTH PORT — What happens when your Smart Home isn’t so smart?
If it’s in North Port, Kim Htwe opens the sliding door and performs something like a rain dance. And her hubby, Darnell Glover, has a weapon on standby to terminate the flies motoring through the gap.
If they’re lucky, and the winds and clouds are just so, those everyday rituals get a trickle of internet to power their brand new, state-of-the-art home.
But just barely.
The couple has turned to such crazy tactics to gain usable internet, as their neighborhood off Ponce de Leon Blvd. has vintage service.
Htwe and Glover had appealed to the service provider, to the city, commiserated with neighbors, even rigged risky contraptions just to make their Smart Home … smart.
“With working WiFi,” said Htwe, who helps raise two elementary-aged kids, “we’d be good. But we ended up sending (our children) back to the classroom. Right in harm’s way for COVID-19. It has been frustrating.”
“I can do my work,” said Glover, a windshield installer. “But I can’t bill anyone. I can’t get paid.”
Welcome to an area of the city where basic communication is nonexistent, or at least a promise.
Htwe and Glover, new to North Port from Bradenton, had purchased a Smart Home, which means it’s automated for security, efficiency and convenience. Smart Home owners can, for example, power up or down with a swipe of a finger on their cellphone or tablet. Everything is automated for maximum efficiency, including solar panels, driving energy bills to less than $50 a month.
Their three-bedroom abode was pitched by the builder, EcoSun Homes in Port Charlotte, as less costly and technologically superior.
But it needed fiber-optic wiring to run it.
The situation is the norm is some North Port neighborhoods. The irony is people moving there wanted isolation, wanted their large parcels with no sidewalks and no streetlights. But then came the Information Age. And because North Port Estates was rural and spaced, internet providers wouldn’t realize a return on investment, according to city officials pushing providers into the area for years.
“We beg, we plead,” Vice Mayor Jill Luke said. “You try to do what you can. They’ll end up getting better service. But it’s not going to be anything instant.”
Homeowner frustration exploded with the coronavirus, as many began working from home, or their kids had to study on virtual platforms.
Htwe and Glover came to North Port in August. There were options in powering their Smart Home, they were told.
Instead, the sole provider, Frontier Communications, in April had filed for bankruptcy protection. Its default would have devastated its customers.
Now the service provider in rural North Port has ramped up its game, building fiber-optic networks in North Port Estates along Tropicana Boulevard, replacing vintage, low-speed systems.
But relief is down the road. That upsets Phil Heady, a homebound worker living across from Kim and Darnell. He rented office space to gain internet access.
“Am I upset,” he asked. “Hell, yes.”
For Htwe to gain enough internet service, she cracks a heavy patio door, places her mobile hotspot device just so on a DVD rack. But that brings flies inside. Glover doesn’t like bugs. He purchased a salt gun to combat that threat. The sliding door track is littered with belly-up carcasses.
Glover had even tried wrapping a tent spike in copper, pinned loose wiring around the patio-door frame. He did everything but place a foil hat on his wife’s head.
“You should see him run around,” Kim Htwe laughed of her hubby with the salt gun. “He can’t stand flies,” adding that “the brain in our smart house, we’ll have to wait to get it.”
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October 12, 2020 at 01:30AM
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