Salisbury, NC Proceeds With FTTH Build Beats back Time Warner Cable, brings in Ericsson and Zhone Incumbent phone and cable companies have spent years successfully lobbying state lawmakers to pass laws banning towns and cities from wiring themselves -- even in cases where incumbents wouldn't. The laws, usually written by incumbent lawyers, were passed in more than a dozen states without much public debate -- though momentum slowed in recent years due to media attention and consumer advocacy opposition. But last year they started popping up again in North Carolina, due to a number of fiber to the home municipal developments that have been taking off in the state. Wilson, North Carolina launched a $28 million municipal broadband operation named Greenlight last year, offering symmetrical speeds up to 100Mbps. Other cities like Salisbury began exploring the option too. That of course riled up local incumbents Time Warner Cable and AT&T, given fiber to the home would provide faster service than either carrier is willing to provide in the region. Fortunately for locals, Time Warner Cable's bungled attempt to force high broadband overages on customers last year directed extra attention Time Warner Cable's way -- and several efforts to derail fiber projects in Salisbury and Wilson were met by some angry and informed grass roots consumer opposition. While details remain murky, Salisbury today announced they're moving forward with their fiber to the home build, and have selected Ericsson hardware for their IPTV offerings, and Zhone for next-gen PON hardware. "Salisbury officials conducted an exhaustive feasibility study, including case studies, user satisfaction surveys and a thorough business case analysis before commencement of the project," insists Ericsson's press release. For locals, hopefully that "exhaustive feasibility study" involved a decent business plan. It's usually very difficult to set up and operate a financially successful smaller town fiber network, but it's made infinitely more difficult by the legislative and legal assaults such projects face from regional incumbent operators. Wilson, North Carolina runs an interesting blog that highlights how Wilson is engaged in constant battle with incumbents like Time Warner Cable. They also frequently highlight how Wilson amazingly doesn't see the same cable rate hikes (pdf) seen elsewhere in North Carolina.
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  VanPremium
join:2009-07-08
New Orleans, LA | Good for them. I hope we eventually see more cities pushing this and succeeding at it.
Would give cities more of a blueprint on how to approach it (if the laws of the area let them) | |
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 levI am RadiodocPremium,Ex-mod 2002-08
join:2001-05-30
Chicago, IL
kudos:2 | I was afraid municipal broadband was dead Let's hope they kick some ass and show a lower cost per site.
Wish I could help. | |
| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Comcast
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Pricing/speed for internet? Will Salisbury be like Wilson and offer 20 Mbps symmetric internet for $60 per month standalone? Or will pricing be different?
Its rather interesting to see what TWC is doing in WIlson as far as pricing goes. The highest-tier cable package is $50 per month, the highest-tier phone service is $20 per month and the highest-tier internet service is $40, though it appears as though if you get them all together you get less of a deal (probably not though). In comparison, Greenlight's standard pricing is $60 for (much faster, especially on uploads) internet, $35 for phone service (normally $50 for TWC I think) and around $60 for cable. Predatory pricing? Uh, yeah.
It's rather interesting that TWC has chosen to do predatory pricing rather than upgrade infrastructure and compete on the technology front. They could likely pull in more HD channels with SDV, or launch 50 Mbps DOCSIS 3 (50/5 for $100 vs. 40/40 for $100), but instead they're competing on price, hoping the muni "problem" will go away and they can raise pricing back to "normal" levels in a year or two.I hope that, for muni FTTH folks everywhere's sakes, this doesn't happen. | |
| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: Pricing/speed for internet? said by iansltx:It's rather interesting that TWC has chosen to do predatory pricing rather than upgrade infrastructure and compete on the technology front. They could likely pull in more HD channels with SDV, or launch 50 Mbps DOCSIS 3 (50/5 for $100 vs. 40/40 for $100), but instead they're competing on price, hoping the muni "problem" will go away and they can raise pricing back to "normal" levels in a year or two.I hope that, for muni FTTH folks everywhere's sakes, this doesn't happen. Wilson NC isn't the richest place in USA. 2000 Census says 90% of the county earns below 40K a year (my opinion of the map). Wilson downtown is under 25K. The tiny neighborhood of Forest Hills is the only rich area in Wilson. Its not worth to compete on features because nobody will buy them. Wilson is 53 minutes by GMaps from Raleigh through farm fields. Not a bedroom community for the rich.
If this was a playground for hedge fund managers, real estate developers, traders, fortune 500 execs, hollywood executives, and their kids, THEN competing on luxury/features makes sense. | |
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 ThrowDemsOutIf you can't convince 'em, confuse 'emPremium
join:2002-03-03
Mullica Hill, NJ
kudos:4 |  This triple play pkg looks the best for Wilson,NC
»www.greenlightnc.com/home/packages/
Greenlight ULTIMATE $169.95
Get it ALL!
Cable TV
* Get all our Premium Channels including:
o HBO (7 screens)
o Cinemax (4 screens)
o Showtime (11 screens)
o Starz!/Encore (13 screens)
* Expanded Basic (81 channels)
* Digital Plus (43 channels)
* MusicChoice (48 channels)
* Access to PPV (15 channels)
* Access to Video On Demand
* Select From:
High Speed Internet
* 20Mbps/20Mbps Internet (speed applies to both downloads and uploads)
o FASTER than any other provider in NC
o No Modem Required
Telephone
* Home Phone Plus
o 11 Calling Features
o Unlimited Long Distance to US and Canada
But I couldn't find any coverage map on their web site. I wonder how much of their area actually can provide service.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page
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| | WhatNowPremium
join:2009-05-06
Charlotte, NC | Re: This triple play pkg looks the best for Wilson,NC The service area is the city limits from reading their web site or in an interview with the head of the project.
Here are some figures about the Wilson project. They borrowed $28 million wiki reports 18,660 household. That comes to about $1500 per household. The debt and maintenance load is $7.4 million per year or $396.57 per year or $33 per month per household. This is the cost if they get 100 percent take rate at each household. They are expecting about 30% take to break even or consider it a success. I have not read if they are above or below that rate.
They do have some advantages that a private company may not have. As far as I can tell the town electrical utility is responsible for the plant maintenance. I have not seen if they have to pay taxes like a private company but if they do not make enough in revenue the taxpayers will have to pick up the difference. I would guess the got a cheaper interest rate on the $28 million bonds. At this point I assume if you live outside the city limit you may or may not be able to connect to the service. The customers can choose Embarq, TWC or Greenlight FTTH.
I wonder how long the private companies can compete paying taxes on their plant and being required to provide service if a customer should choose to select them. Embarq is required to provide service outside the city limits at a regulated price even if they are losing money because they lost the customers in the Town of Wilson.
The cable and phone companies mainly wanted a level playing field that if a town wanted to go into the cable business they had to set it up like a private business just like if you or I started a FTTH in town to compete against TWC and Embarq. I think that would be fair. If a city run FTTH does not have to go before the planning commission, get permits, pay taxes, rent office space, borrow money cheaper and other hoops that a private company would have to jump through. Why not let a town or city compete with the your company what is the difference. | |
| | | | | Re: This triple play pkg looks the best for Wilson,NC said by WhatNow:The service area is the city limits from reading their web site or in an interview with the head of the project. Here are some figures about the Wilson project. They borrowed $28 million wiki reports 18,660 household. That comes to about $1500 per household. The debt and maintenance load is $7.4 million per year or $396.57 per year or $33 per month per household. This is the cost if they get 100 percent take rate at each household. They are expecting about 30% take to break even or consider it a success. I have not read if they are above or below that rate. They do have some advantages that a private company may not have. As far as I can tell the town electrical utility is responsible for the plant maintenance. I have not seen if they have to pay taxes like a private company but if they do not make enough in revenue the taxpayers will have to pick up the difference. I would guess the got a cheaper interest rate on the $28 million bonds. At this point I assume if you live outside the city limit you may or may not be able to connect to the service. The customers can choose Embarq, TWC or Greenlight FTTH. I wonder how long the private companies can compete paying taxes on their plant and being required to provide service if a customer should choose to select them. Embarq is required to provide service outside the city limits at a regulated price even if they are losing money because they lost the customers in the Town of Wilson. The cable and phone companies mainly wanted a level playing field that if a town wanted to go into the cable business they had to set it up like a private business just like if you or I started a FTTH in town to compete against TWC and Embarq. I think that would be fair. If a city run FTTH does not have to go before the planning commission, get permits, pay taxes, rent office space, borrow money cheaper and other hoops that a private company would have to jump through. Why not let a town or city compete with the your company what is the difference. I think you're missing the point. Private companies get all sorts of tax breaks of their own, and do everything they can to prevent this muni fiber projects from taking off. Witness UTOPIA and the incumbents' utterly ridiculous lawsuit over their use of the poles that delayed the UTOPIA project significantly and cost them millions.
The concept of "fair competition" in infrastructure services is a misnomer. Infrastructure is impossible to create a free market out of. Providing it at the expense of private corporations should not be looked down upon. | |
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 gatorkramKaBOOM BabyPremium
join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC
kudos:2
·Suddenlink
| Fiber... I was watching the development in Wilson, for a long time, and was happy for them, when they got it up and running.
I still think about moving over there, it's about 50 miles east from here.
I'll never understand, how I've lived in two college towns, and neither of them have had much in the way of high speed internet options, yet towns like Wilson roll their own.
Good luck Salisbury, I'll be watching.
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Give me bandwidth or give me death!
»/testhistory/661871/4f240 | |
| | | | Re: Fiber... What gets me about TWC is their faster tier--TURBO is the same upstream that AT&T OFFERS, FOR A HIGHER PRICE, IN NORTH CAROLINA WE ARE JUST SCREWED!!!!
Too bad we do not live in areas like GREENLIGHT.
As TWC AND AT&T are just not working. | |
| | | | said by gatorkram:Good luck Salisbury, I'll be watching. I will let you know how it turns out. | |
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|  alchav
join:2002-05-17
Palm Desert, CA | said by gatorkram:I was watching the development in Wilson, for a long time, and was happy for them, when they got it up and running. I'll never understand, how I've lived in two college towns, and neither of them have had much in the way of high speed internet options, yet towns like Wilson roll their own. Good luck Salisbury, I'll be watching. You can WISH and WATCH forever, but until you do something nothing will happen. If you want Fiber in your Community, it could happen, but you have to do the Leg Work. No Company, City, or anyone is going to come in and spend money on people that don't care. If you want Fiber get out there organize your neighborhood and go for it! | |
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Monie
join:2008-08-09
Salisbury, NC
1 edit | Been waiting for fiber for so long I've been waiting for this for so long  They will have testing soon and will be picking people to test. I hope I am picked.
EDIT: There's also a blog »salisburyftthblog.com/ but it hasn't been updated in so long.
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OmegaHosts Web Hosting
»omegahosts.com | |
| Reviews:
·Embarq Now Centu..
| North Carolina I cannot speak for the rest of the country but here in North Carolina I find that we have limited choices of service. The companies know that they don't have no competition so they offer the speed and price that they think is satisfying for them. How would a consumer know any different if they have never use 20M syn. This was the local cable and DSL mentality are basically is now.
For many years we had one company for broadband, they offered only one package for CABLE service. 1.5Mb down and 384K up, this for $59.00. I use this service for 4 years and experienced daily outages that were blamed on bad lines and anything else they could think of that they thought I didn't know about. After suffering 4 years EMBARQ made DSL available in my area. 10Mb down 896Kb up. I been down 2 times in 3 years.
The problem with the companies not wanting towns to build their own infrastructure is they cannot control the speed and price. I have no idea it if is feasible to build your own fiber network but I do know competition is a better thing.
The US is really behind in broadband speeds compared to some of the other countries. I feel like we are controlled like children with our speed and pricing for our internet from these companies. Its time to move on and expand the speed and availability of internet.
Something to think about, if you controlled the internet connection, speed and the upgrades, would you want towns to take that away from you? | |
| Reviews:
·Yadkin Valley Te..
| FTTH currently in next county I live in Davie County which is next door to Salisbury. Our telephone co-op supplies 2/12 FTTH for $70 a month. They have all the other things attached like phone and TV.
I like the idea of a decent internet connection. 2up and 12down is plenty more is only a bonus. I use mine for business and pleasure.
I also like the idea of not being held hostage. We have DSL, Cable and the Fiber. TWC does not own the world here. TWC is not cheap.
I do not know how many / % have access to the Fiber. I hope its a lot. I wish those folks luck in Salisbury. | |
| | | Broadband in North Carolina I live in Greensboro and have AT&T DSL. Actually, it is quite reliable. I will give AT&T that. However, for the money they don't offer much here and neither does TWC. And the answer is actually pretty simple. As AT&T tried to finagle with the rates, etc I just cut back my service to standalone DSL. Granted not everyone is going to do that. I could probably afford one of the faster tiers but I refuse to pay more until they offer more for my dollar. 6mbs down/512 up is paltry for the money they ask on a standalone line.
TWC is unreliable esp in the evenings.
AT&T if you are listening. I won't upgrade any of my services with you until you offer faster tiers for the money. Otherwise I am staying with the reliable but slow and affordable $25/mo naked 768K DSL. Until something changes dramatically you are on your own. Yes I drive a hard bargain. And that is not my problem. There is not enough competition in broadband. | |
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The time has come for Public Broadband Service.
Those wishing to create municipal or cooperative broadband networks need to travel back in time. Most of the rural telephone service was installed by municipalities telephone cooperatives in the 1920's and 30's. The process would still be simple but for the fact there appears to be a lack of companies capable of doing a turnkey broadband installation. During the growth of rural telephone service municipalities or cooperatives would obtain bids from companies such as Leich, Automatic Electric, Kellogg and Stromberg Carlson. The selected vendor would install the complete system and then train employees how to install drops and maintain the outside plant and central office equipment. Hopefully there will be a resurgence of cooperative or municipal owned broadband networks. Until then American Citizens will continue to be gouged by corporate greed.