http://www.wilsondaily.com/News/Local/Story/Greenlight-to-offer-high-speed-Internet-only-service--

Quote :

" Greenlight, the city's fiber optic service, announced Friday that it will now allow customers to sign up for high-speed Internet service without also opting for other services. Since Greenlight launched last summer, it has only sold Internet service as a bundled service with either telephone or cable television service or all three. That was due to the time and expense of installing a piece of equipment called an optical network terminal, which is mounted outdoors, city spokesman Brian Bowman said Friday. The city decided to require all subscribers to bundle their services. "We couldn't really make it (a single service) work until now," Bowman said. However, the city has added new indoor ONTs that can be installed with less time and labor, he said. Now people who live within Greenlight's service area can sign up for Internet-only service. This starts at a 20-million-bits-per-second speed for $59.95 per month. That 20 Mbps speed is for both uploads and downloads, making it the fastest residential Internet service available anywhere in North Carolina, Bowman said. Greenlight also has three even faster packages -- 40 Mbps, $104.95 a month; 60 Mbps, $204.95; and 100 Mbps, $304.95 per month. The Internet-only services cost $5 a month more than the same services would as part of a bundle. Greenlight is still not offering cable- or phone-only service. The Internet-only service was added at the request of potential customers, Bowman said. "

How do these numbers / prices compare to Time Warner?

3/21/2009 1:14:49 PM

ahaqhhahahahaha. seriously?

twc sucks and doesn't even compare. their turbo is up to 10 mbps for $60

3/21/2009 1:26:23 PM

If they really deliver those speeds they destroy time warner in every way

3/21/2009 1:27:00 PM

except... the service is only available in wilson

3/21/2009 2:30:03 PM

Quote :

"twc sucks and doesn't even compare. their turbo is up to 10 mbps for $60"

and that 10mbps speed is only downstream. Wilson is selling symetrical connection speeds. Unfortunately, their fiber optic connections will probably be obsolete by the time they get done rolling it out, and the only purpose it will serve then will be for corporate welfare.

[Edited on March 21, 2009 at 3:05 PM. Reason : symetrical]

3/21/2009 2:39:23 PM

Quote :

" 20-million-bits-per-second"

20 million bits!!?? OMG MILLION IS SUCH A BIG NUMBER!

(but yeah - symmetrical service at 20Mbps, or 10 or even 5Mbps would be awesome)

[Edited on March 21, 2009 at 3:02 PM. Reason : .]

3/21/2009 3:01:54 PM

Quote :

"Greenlight has deployed the latest in cable, Internet, and telephone technologies. The system includes the best equipment available from leading broadband suppliers like Scientific-Atlanta and Alcatel. Alcatel is a market leader in fiber to the premises (FTTP) optical access technology. The Alcatel architecture is deployed worldwide and serving other FTTP systems across North America. Alcatel equipment delivers true triple play services including high-speed data, carrier class voice services, and cable, all across a single fiber to the customer premises."

Yay!

I've seen the ONT's do 900Mbit each on 2 ports error free. I dont know who would pay for that connection though!

[Edited on March 21, 2009 at 3:22 PM. Reason : .]

3/21/2009 3:21:38 PM

^ businesses.

Serious gamers, file sharing ppl. Theres a market out there. Dunno if tis in Wilson, but I know plenty of ppl in/around raleigh who would pay if it was here. Why is it different from verizon up north with fiber and their rates and speeds?

3/21/2009 10:05:09 PM

the symmetrical upload alone might make it worth it. It would make publishing websites much, much nicer, and make uploading to YouTube and Flickr much faster.
And it would make full-drive off-site backups a real possibility.

3/21/2009 10:28:56 PM

Quote :

"Unfortunately, their fiber optic connections will probably be obsolete by the time they get done rolling it out, and the only purpose it will serve then will be for corporate welfare."

You do realize that ISPs upgrade equipment over time?

yep, even Crime Warner does this.

3/22/2009 9:24:15 AM

^ I too, do not know what the hell he is talking about.

3/22/2009 11:26:22 AM

I have never heard of this "upgrading" thing. Please to elaborate?

3/22/2009 12:50:24 PM

^^,^^^

I'm glad that both of you think you are so much smarter than the John Locke Foundation. Or maybe you're both clueless about how much money Wilson has spent on their fiber optic projects. Wilson has always stated from day one that their fiber optic project was being rolled out as a corporate welfare incentive first and foremost.

http://www.johnlocke.org/policy_reports/20090106192.html

they've already financed $28 million on fiber optic infrastructure, which no one expects them to recoup. In the long run, they're electric and water customers are going to have to cover these costs.

[Edited on March 22, 2009 at 9:17 PM. Reason : but please, continue on with your uneducated bullshit]

3/22/2009 9:12:33 PM

their*

3/22/2009 9:22:48 PM

The Internet: where someone is always more intelligent, more informed, wittier, and faster than you could ever be.

3/22/2009 9:26:48 PM

Quote :

"I'm glad that both of you think you are so much smarter than the John Locke Foundation"

When it comes to networking, I absolutely am.

Their argument is horribly flawed and shows a horrible lack of understanding of the underlying technologies.

I will elaborate later, i've got a sick child to tend to at the moment.

3/22/2009 11:08:29 PM

Quote :

"City officials promised that fiber-optic cable users, not taxpayers, would pay the entire cost of the system, but WiMax wireless Internet technology is rapidly leapfrogging fiber-optic cable technology, making it obsolete."

that pretty much says it all. that's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. 2.5ghz rf > LIGHT on glass

3/23/2009 2:24:17 AM

I had some TWC package with internet and cable, I think I ended up paying $40 for the regular road runner (10...which clocked at 3 consistently).

3/23/2009 11:17:18 AM

[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 11:57 AM. Reason : .]

3/23/2009 11:46:19 AM

WiMax is limited/effected by tall structures, weather, and geography.

3/23/2009 6:35:02 PM

did any of you dumbasses even bother to read the PDF article, or did you just make shortsighted assumptions based off of the action points on the main page? The comment about WiMax is that when WiMax comes to Wilson, it's going to strip away the customers that only want a simple internet connection because the features of cheaper price and mobility will make WiMax more appealing. Once that happens, Wilson will lose customers and bleed money out even faster. Did anyone even bother to read this snippet?.

Quote :

"The math is simple — 30 percent of 18,522 households equals 5,557. Multiply that by a $90 basic TV, Internet and phone bundle, times 12 for a year of service, and the city is looking at $6 million in annual revenues. Some people would surely get packages with more cable channels and faster Internet speeds, so that’s more money.19 The first year’s expected operating costs is $5.6 million20 and the annual debt repayment is $1.8 million,21 however; the $7.4 million in expenses would not be fully covered by $6 million in revenue, which would result in a $1.4 million loss per year. Obviously this loss would have to be covered by city funds from other sources, most likely from electricity rate increases, property tax increases, or both."

And Wilson residents already pay some of the highest electrical rates in the state, at over 50% higher than Duke or Progress Energy. Their meter charge is also higher.



[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 10:25 PM. Reason : http://www.johnlocke.org/acrobat/policyReports/rb71-wilsoncable.pdf]

3/23/2009 10:20:13 PM

WiMax is not going to take off.

It's the modern day ISDN.

3/24/2009 9:59:00 AM

I like how they tout WiMax a few times but are at least careful to qualify their statement (emphasis mine)

Quote :

"The fact that WiMax wireless technology could make fiber-optic cable obsolete is further warning against cities risking taxpayer money in rapidly changing technological ventures."

Then don't do any sort of discussion about WiMax anywhere in the piece.

I think they make a reasonable case about the system costs though I think at this point we aren't really sure what the uptake will be or how it will work out. They point out that the Provo, Utah municipal fiber program was sold, but they don't mention that it was sold for the cost of investment. So, what did the fiber program do? Put people to work installing it, brought the highest of technology service available to the town, and now the taxpayers are free of obligations on any shortfall in the endeavor. The fact that a private party purchased the system tells me they think there is real value to be made there.

3/24/2009 10:29:11 AM

yeah, my whole problem with eleusis's assertion is that a technology that has yet to have anything approaching commercial success will make fiber optics "obsolete."

the theoretical max bandwidth of fiber is nearly infinite (basically, there is no technology currently available that can maximally saturate optical fiber).

Of course, now he wants to argue about government waste since he doesn't understand the technology enough to debate it.

3/24/2009 10:42:03 AM

Quote :

"WiMax is not going to take off."

i'm curious as to why this is, though...you'd think there'd be a market for long-range (compared to wifi, i mean) high-speed internet access...i know when i first heard of wimax, there was talk of cities paying for city-wide coverage and then increasing everyone's tax bill at a fraction of the cost (like $10/year) of other high-speed carriers

sure, for some of us wimax isn't anything special or desirable...but i'd LOVE to have "free" wireless covering the entire city of raleigh for my use whenever i want...i'd happily pay an extra $10-20/year in addition to my home intarweb access

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 10:47 AM. Reason : .]

3/24/2009 10:47:10 AM

^ Absolutely the market exists for it, but it won't be WiMax that achieves this. LTE will become the standard for metro-area wireless, mainly because WiMax requires new infrastructure to be built whereas LTE builds on existing WCDMA/HSPA networks, and therefore requires less investment.

3/24/2009 11:11:24 AM

There's certainly an argument about costs that can be made, but that snippet doesn't come close to doing it. Earlier in the report they talk about how the fiber-optic network will be left with cable and phone customers only once WiMax takes over, but they ignore the fact that those people will be paying for those services. They also mention Wilson having a lower than average number of households with computers, which means that potentially a lot of households will only have cable and phone from the very start (or from now, as the original article mentions they're now offering it). But then they leave out any of those households from their revenue calculation. They also entirely leave out any businesses from their revenue.

Also, do operating costs decline over time? It might cost more to operate in the first year when they're doing a lot of installs and rolling out the service, but that might drop in subsequent years.

All that even assumes that WiMax will in fact take off, which is far from a sure thing. They don't even seem to have confidence in it themselves; they offer no projection for when it will happen. All they do is talk about it rolling out in other cities and then waving their hands to say it's "only a matter of time" before it's available in podunk lil' Wilson, NC.

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 12:41 PM. Reason : ]

3/24/2009 12:37:29 PM

in related news:

Virgin eyes 150Mb broadband speed

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7961135.stm

3/24/2009 3:51:29 PM

http://www22.verizon.com/residential/fiosinternet/

not in NC yet...

this is not new stuff people...

Quote :

"Unfortunately, their fiber optic connections will probably be obsolete by the time they get done rolling it out, and the only purpose it will serve then will be for corporate welfare."

how long has their been talk about wimax? where is it again? thought so.

[Edited on March 26, 2009 at 12:48 PM. Reason : s]

3/26/2009 12:43:48 PM

Quote :

"how long has their been talk about wimax? where is it again? thought so."

it's here, in raleigh...they call it "clearwire"

i don't know if you're being serious or not, though

[Edited on March 26, 2009 at 1:14 PM. Reason : .]

3/26/2009 1:13:13 PM

Quote :

"Unfortunately, their fiber optic connections will probably be obsolete by the time they get done rolling it out, and the only purpose it will serve then will be for corporate welfare."

aren't they done rolling it out?

I know people with the service.

But, seriously, Wilson....

3/26/2009 6:04:52 PM

damn, 35 miles from greenville.

3/26/2009 6:20:45 PM

^^^ It's also 2Mbps, hardly fiber obsoleting.

3/26/2009 9:03:17 PM

wimax is not here yet, only seattle has it. i think atlanta is the nearest market to get it in the next year.
http://gizmodo.com/tag/wimax/

clearwire here is 3g, and is not the same as their wimax

3/26/2009 11:31:22 PM

There's probably a more knowledgeable fiber-optic guy than me on tww, but I'd argue that the

Quote :

"theoretical max bandwidth of fiber is nearly infinite"

Bandwidth using dwdm is only limited by channel-spacing, which is constrained by chromatic/polar dispersion and transceiver lambda sensitivity.

As we continue to reduce the size of those constraints, we'll reduce the size of channel spacing, which will increase the number of lamdbas per dark fiber, which will increase bandwidth, irrelevant of signalling/coding standards.

3/27/2009 6:03:12 PM

Some logical posting showed up!!!

3/27/2009 6:36:07 PM

Quote :

"LTE will become the standard for metro-area wireless, mainly because WiMax requires new infrastructure to be built whereas LTE builds on existing WCDMA/HSPA networks, and therefore requires less investment."

ding ding ding. sprint isn't going to build out wimax nationwide, it would be prohibitively expensive when they could just go LTE. the only thing i can see wimax being useful for is backhaul in areas where a digital multiplexed line isn't practical or even available, as it's cheaper than the line of sight microwave stuff they use now.

Quote :

"wimax is not here yet, only seattle has it. i think atlanta is the nearest market to get it in the next year."

yes it is, i'm not really sure what you're talking about.

clearwire is not 3g, it has nothing to do with GSM.


also,

Quote :

"Bandwidth using dwdm is only limited by channel-spacing, which is constrained by chromatic/polar dispersion and transceiver lambda sensitivity. As we continue to reduce the size of those constraints, we'll reduce the size of channel spacing, which will increase the number of lamdbas per dark fiber, which will increase bandwidth, irrelevant of signalling/coding standards."

3/27/2009 6:58:15 PM

Quote :

"wimax is not here yet, only seattle has it. i think atlanta is the nearest market to get it in the next year"

Baltimore has it too, and apparently it's working well.

3/27/2009 7:31:57 PM

Quote :

" yes it is, i'm not really sure what you're talking about."

clearwire here is not their high speed product
http://newsroom.clearwire.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=214419&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1263228&highlight

Quote :

"Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle Among Cities Going “Clear” in 2009 "

https://www.clear.com/shop/get_clear.php
type in your address if you want

[Edited on March 29, 2009 at 8:48 AM. Reason : .]

3/29/2009 8:47:11 AM

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wimax-clearwire-storch,2174.html

3/30/2009 8:07:59 AM