The stakes could not be in higher now in North Carolina where communities are sick and tired of being sick and tired of paying ridiculous prices for Internet, TV Programming and Telephone services are in a battle to save a local broadband services from being shut down by Time Warner.
Several towns have formed private companies in North Carolina to roll out their own service packages. Not at all surprisingly they are offering some amazing data, television, and telephone services that Time Warner is not happy about.
Wilson, North Carolina asked Time Warner Cable for more bandwidth a lower prices. TWC was unwilling to do so, Wilson, NC invested 28 million dollars to roll there own.
A comparison of services from various providers. The local service, Greenlight, both provides the most affordable bundle option for its speed, and offers an unmatched 100 Mbps option. The success has cable providers trying to outlaw the service. (Source: IndyWeek)
What is ironic here is that every time I have examined a city or town doing this it is a big win for the residents. Even more amazing if you look at the chart. They offer a 100mps symmetrical connection for $300.00 a month.
Almost makes you want to pack up and move your business to the Wilson, NC area.
Here is the kicker Time Warner has used its lobbyist and strong arm tactics to get a bill introduced in the North Carolina legislature that would actually outlaw what the city of Wilson did.
There is a huge battle going in in this state and if you don’t think it could happen in yours you are sadly mistaken. If you are a resident of North Carolina you better pick up the phone today and support Save North Carolina Broadband
It appears that Time Warner is re-thinking it’s deployment of faster broadband offerings because consumers complained about the caps!
Ladies and Gentleman I am constraining myself from saying what I really want to say to Time Warner, because I am trying to keep this post in the G rating category.
So not only does it appear that Time Warner Cable was going to try and ram bandwidth caps down customers throats, they are now going to go and threaten it’s customers by saying no caps, no speed increases. I am telling you this is a great way to make your customers really love you.
Check out this statement”
“This week, TWC chief operating officer Landel Hobbs said at a conference in California that his company’s strategy will be to deploy DOCSIS 3.0 “surgically” in markets where it is most needed, but not in markets where the company is not finding support for its tiered broadband services.”
Well I have news for the folks at Time Warner Cable, you all are not going to be rolling out very much DOCSIS 3.0 anywhere in the country, because people are not going to stand for these bandwidth capping games.
The true problem goes back to our local public utility commissions. The high majority of us have no choices as TWC doesn’t have true competition. We don’t have it here in Hawaii, and the poor folks who were going to be the guinea pigs in 4 market areas were in areas that were to get BW Cap Trials did not either.
Earlier in the month I talked with a Clearwire representative about getting one of there modems to see if the signal reached my home. As you all know I have been plagued with intermittent upload speed issues where I live.
The cable provider here in Hawaii is Time Warner serviced through Oceanic Cable, while I live on Oahu my home is on Historic Ford Island, with my home less then 200 feet from the Utah Memorial.
Having received the demo unit I decided tonight to do a comparison of 3 services. The real kicker is this though the Clearwire representative could not guarantee service in my current location as I was supposedly out of range. I think you will be surprised at how well Clearwire stacked up against my cable provider.
I knew my Spring EVDO would not really have a chance, but because I rely on it so heavily during the day, and considering that the Sprint service is only 3G here in Hawaii I think they did pretty good in this comparison. I think the Sprint folks will be pretty happy with the results.
All three test were done on the same machine with all programs accessing the net turned off. The test site was www.speakeasy.net/speedtest
First up Oceanic Cable Broadband Service by Time Warner Price $44.95
Second Clearwire in an area where service is not guaranteed Price $36.99
Third Sprint EVDO on a 3G Network with Full Bar Signal Strength Price $79.99
In my humble opinion if services like clearwire work on increasing their speed they have a chance of putting a real hurt on the local cable company. I will be signing up for the service just to have some more flexibility.
What would really be awesome is if I could buy push speeds that equaled download speeds.
