Normally, life in Holiday Village Mobile Home Park is pretty quiet.
It’s 185 manufactured homes sit under mature trees in the 39-acre park where roads wind past tidy yards.
Here’s a look at the park from FlashEarth:
Its mostly elderly residents enjoy their twilight years playing community-coordinated bingo, brdige, line dancing, potluck dinners and more at the clubhouse and around the pool and spa.
Until now.
A couple weeks ago, the park’s corporate owner, Equity LifeStyle Properties or ELS notified the residents that existing phone, cable TV and internet service providers were being evicted. Read the letter here:
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Instead of Qwest Communications or Comcast, residents will now be served by Primecast. ELS signed an exclusive agreement with Primecast to allow the Florida-based company to be the sole provider.
ELS vice president Lance Beatch said individual phone numbers will remain the same. But any e-mail addresses tied to Qwest or Comcast will have to be changed.
Of course the residents can keep the addressed if they want to pay a premium. ELS has offered to pay the fee for a few months. But beyond that, it will up to the residents to pay or change e-mails.
Many are outraged at the change and are rallying the community to oppose it. They scheduled a “town hall meeting” to discuss strategies. Here’s a flier announcing the meeting:
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Some are upset because they’ve heard bad things about Primecast. Here’s what the South Florida Better Business Bureau rates the company:
Yes, that’s a D+.
Beatch was unable to say whether other services will translate to Primecast, such as Qwest’s Telehealth equipment which transmits vital health statistics of some Holiday Village residents to their doctors on a daily basis.
Nor did he know if Lifeline panic buttons will operate on Primecast. Lifeline buttons are worn around the neck. Should someone fall or become incapacitated, they can press the button to call for help.
But Beatch defended the switch to Primecast saying it will lower everyone’s bills for phones, cable TV and internet serivce and the residents will appreciate it in the long run.
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