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Article Courtesy of Channel
9 WFTV Action News
By
Jeff Deal
Published October 20, 2023
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WATCH VIDEO |
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LAKE COUNTY — An entire community in central Florida suddenly lost internet
service about a month ago and there’s no word on when or if it will be restored.
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The Seasons at Spring Creek community in Lake County is now
in its final phase of construction. Arlene Fernandez bought
her home in 2021 while relocating from south Florida. She
was excited about the promise of high-speed internet with
fiber-optic lines throughout the community.
Fernandez said, “We stumbled upon this neighborhood that was
being built and we got excited. We moved in.”
She and her neighbors told us the internet service was
lightning fast when it worked, but they said it was
inconsistent.
Michelle DeJusto, who works from home, felt it was annoying
at times, but when the service shut down completely last
month that’s when her frustration really set in.
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“I had to grab my equipment, my desktop and move it over to my brother’s house,”
DeJusto told Action 9.
The community homeowners association that was under control of home builder
Richmond American Homes at the time, signed a seven-year exclusive deal with a
company called Fastlite to provide service. Fastlite worked out a deal with
another company called BroadStar to help with the infrastructure.
But an attorney for BroadStar told Action 9′s Jeff Deal, Fastlite wasn’t paying
its bills, and he said, BroadStar went to great lengths to keep the service
going for months while trying to negotiate and collect money from Fastlite, but
it finally had to pull the plug.
Fernandez has driven to Orlando on some days because she couldn’t work from
home.
“I lost days of work because my internet was shut off,” Fernandez said.
BroadStar, which also uses the name Sunshine Communications Management, LLC, has
filed a lawsuit against Fastlite claiming it still owes tens of thousands of
dollars.
Neighbors told Action 9 they blame Richmond American Homes for putting them in
this position.
Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal went to the builder for answers.
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A man who seemed to be in charge at the office told Deal, “I’ve had a couple of
complaints, but it’s just nothing I can do about it unfortunately.”
The corporate office for Richmond American Homes said it doesn’t comment
publicly on customer concerns, but does take them very seriously.
Attorney Mark Lippman, who specializes in HOA cases said Fastlite not providing
the service could be considered in a breach of the exclusive contract and that
could open the door to other providers.
“You can call anyone like Spectrum, for instance, call Spectrum. And they’ll
say, ‘Yeah, we’d love to come in there, but we don’t have our own lines in
there,’” Lippman said.
Even if it does open the door, he believes finding another company willing to
put in lines and provide service could take several month or even up to a year.
In the meantime, some homeowners are using hotspots from wireless carriers to at
least have some service, but they say it’s not as fast as their home internet
was. They feel trapped in the middle of a dispute they never expected when
moving into a modern community.
Fernandez said, “Unfortunately, we live in that world now where we do need
internet for everything.”
Lippman told Action 9 one other thing that could be a concern is if a company
that does work in a community, like BroadStar in this case, feels it’s owed
money, it could also go after the HOA or even put liens on individual homes in
the community to try to collect.
Action 9 has reached out to Fastlite, but so far it has not responded.
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