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Fish
@poloralphlauren.com

Fish

Anon

Lightstar no longer advertised?

I'm in the process of buying a home in High Point across from Oak Hollow Dam on 68. I've emailed Northstate about what they offer and they told me the usual PLEX services they offer now, except no TV as that is now only available towards the beginning of High Point on Hwy 68 in a new development. So it seems I'm without fiber and when I ask when they'll move forward with existing communities, I get the whole "I don't know" BS.

I'm willing to do PLEX Internet as i'm doing Road Runner Turbo currently and don't want to have to deal with the caps in the future which I know will eventually get forced back. The thing is, on the website, lightstar is no longer listed... ANYWHERE. It's as if it doesn't exist and the only option is the Plex DSL.

I figured i'd check and see if anybody knew anything.

Matt3
All noise, no signal.
Premium Member
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC

Matt3

Premium Member

Hello Fish.

I am a Lightstar customer in Jamestown and I was curious about Plex when I saw the advertisements. I also noticed that everything has been moved to Plex and any mention of Lightstar had been removed from the website. When I asked about getting one of their IPTV services, the person I spoke to seemed to think that IPTV would be delivered over Lightstar down the line, however, if I wanted to upgrade to a Plex internet package, I would lose my Lightstar upstream speed.

The representative said I should stay with my Lightstar package if I wanted to keep my upstream speed, so I believe they still offer it, they would just rather provision people for Plex and sell multiple services.

And I know what you mean about the representatives knowledge of the products they sell. It's pretty awful. That is really the only complaint I have about North State. Hell, I've called in on 2 or 3 occasions and the repair people didn't even know what Lightstar was. They were asking me to disconnect DSL modems and such.

Fish
@rr.com

Fish to Fish

Anon

to Fish
Considering the RR Turbo i'm overpaying for is only 10Mbps/512kbps... PLEX should fill my needs more than enough, I just wish the TV were available as i'd like to totally get away from TW and I can't stand satellite

Matt3
All noise, no signal.
Premium Member
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC

Matt3

Premium Member

said by Fish :

Considering the RR Turbo i'm overpaying for is only 10Mbps/512kbps... PLEX should fill my needs more than enough, I just wish the TV were available as i'd like to totally get away from TW and I can't stand satellite
Same here. Their 20 channel package would be perfect for me.
DVDdude
join:2003-06-15
Greensboro, NC

DVDdude to Fish

Member

to Fish
I have been in the same boat as most of you for months. When TW announced their cap nonsense months ago, I started HEAVILY researching Northstate LightStar.

At the time, my TW roadrunner connection was slow and with the caps, I was looking to switch to LightStar. I was told that fiber was laid in my neighborhood when I moved into my house (off of Deep River Road in High Point). After numerous calls to NSC, I was told that fiber was only "laid to the curb" which means I could only get DSL speeds. Since NSC customer service, sales, and tech support all seem clueless, I thought about scheduling a LightStar installation appointment just to see what the installer would say about my chances of getting 20mbs Lightstar speed. I put it off to see if TW could finally fix my RR connection.

I eventually got TW to fix my roadrunner connection by complaining to Tier 3 support and they sent the head technician out to my house. My RR Turbo connection was restored to 10mbs on XP and 15mbs on Vista (vista has a better networking stack than XP).

Getting back to LightStar :

I called dozens of times and talked to sales, customer service, and tech support. 99% of them had no idea what LightStar is/was - even though it is advertised on their website. I have never experienced a company so clueless about their own service.

NSC REALLY NEEDS TO INFORM THEIR SALES AND CUSTOMER SUPPORT ABOUT THE PLEX SERVICE.

PROVIDE THEM WITH A MAP OR SOMETHING DETAILING WHAT STREETS/NEIGHBORHOODS ACTUALLY HAVE FIBER TO THE HOME!

Matt3
All noise, no signal.
Premium Member
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC

Matt3

Premium Member

Wow, DVDdude See Profile, that is nuts. I almost bought a townhome in Deep River Villas too and I know for a fact they used to be listed as a "Lightstar" neighborhood. I'm not surprised North State got that wrong though, as I've found the knowledgeable folks are all in engineering.
Matt3

Matt3 to Fish

Premium Member

to Fish
Update: The Lightstar packages are no longer available. If you currently have a Lightstar package (like my 15Mbps / 2Mbps) you can keep it, but you will not be eligible for any discounts and if you ever make a change, you have to move to a Plex speed tier, which tops out at 20Mbps / 768Kbps.
wgc749
join:2009-08-22
Thomasville, NC

wgc749 to Fish

Member

to Fish
NSC has updated it's website as recently as the last week or two.

I,myself,am on Expressnet Lite.It was moved to business users,as far as marketing goes,when PLEX was introduced,but now NSC has repackaged the small to medium business line as BusinessBroadBand.Catchy,huh.And surprising no one else already had a trademark on it.

The Expressnet Lite is the same as the lowest tier of PLEX,for almost half the cost,but no one at NSC can confirm whether or not I can keep my old e-mail address if I were moved to PLEX.I don't think so,and I have already been through that when I switched from TW.

I am waiting on some other things to pan out,because I may be able to upgrade to 6Mbps,hopefully.