davoice
join:2000-08-12
Saxapahaw, NC
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to Matt
Re: Yes we do....
Well... there's a bit of an untold story here.
Progress Energy used to be known as Carolina Power & Light (CP&L). CP&L owns WRAL-TV5, the local CBS affiliate, and used to own the network of what used to be one of the largest independent ISPs (InterPath) in the south. [Note they also own a whole bunch of other stuff too.]
InterPath was originally started to provide dial-up access to CP&L employees (sort of like IBM who, like InterPath, later opened its network up for public subscription and then after a while sold it for a tidy sum).
The network was expanded to the general public and they did quite well since they had easy access to facilities in every community that CP&L served. (Do you think the local Bell's could easily say no or try to foot drag against the people providing power to all their equipment?) In many communities in NC, InterPath was the *only* real ISP in town b/c NC has so many cities that aren't served by Ma Bell. On top of the telco world, CP&L already had a decent fiber plant installed between many places they serviced - used to monitor the electric grid. So they didn't have to completely rely on the telcos for everything.
A couple years ago CP&L sold off the internet access side of their operations to Earthlink - pre-dotbomb - and became US Internetworking, Inc. (Actually it was more of a leaseback since Earthlink basically bought the public customers and the network elements from InterPath but InterPath kept the CP&L employees as InterPath subscribers on the same network and still maintained control of many parts of the network.) US Internetworking became a software ASP focusing on IT Outsourcing and HR consulting.
None of the articles specifically mentions InterPath... but you can be sure that guys from the former InterPath division are leading this test. And since CP&L/Progress already has access to a very nice ISP grade IP infrastructure in many parts of North Carolina, it should be fairly trivial for them to hang new services out.
To sum up, this isn't CP&L's first foray into the ISP world. They're quite technically savvy as power companies go. (I lived in CP&L territory for over 20 years and still have quite a few family members and friends who work for them in various groups.)
You can rest assured they know exactly what they're getting into. They got out of the dial-up business - and did it before the tech bubble burst, which says a LOT about the savvy of their management - and are now entering a new market along w/ an existing business partner. I must say if I had to pick a national ISP partner for this sort of thing, Earthlink would be my personal choice. Since both companies already know how to work w/ each other, I'm expecting to see this project expand rapidly, provided the technology actually works.
- Davoice |
