If you live in Raleigh, Durham, or Cary I’ll bet your cable and broadband rates have gone up during the past three years. The cable company has been out front in the national media, saying it’s a victim of rising prices from media companies.

Apparently, this national battle has no effect on Wilson. Since Wilson built its fiber-to-the-home Greenlight network three years ago, the cable company hasn’t asked for the annual price increases it once did.

Test it for yourself: Google their website and check rates for your home. Then check the rates for 27893, a local Wilson zip code.

At our December meeting with the NC House Select Committee on High Speed Internet Access in Rural and Urban Areas, Catharine Rice of Action Audits did a great job explaining the price differences between Raleigh, Durham and Wilson customers.

Here’s the video of Rice’s presentation and here’s a pdf of her slides.

The overnight snow that was supposed to hit this part of NC didn’t happen, but several counties in the area still had delays this morning.

If you accessed the web and you’re not a Greenlight member, you saw how unusually heavy traffic affects your speeds. Wilson’s fiber-to-the-home service carries higher bandwidth on regular days, but it really shows when traffic jumps.

Broadband customers share boxes of links to the internet. Picture a group of homes on a cul de sac. They all share the street. Wilson’s Greenlight was designed to have fewer customers on each link. Picture three houses on a cul de sac instead of 10. Fewer customers per line means better speeds and reliability when you need it.

During a holiday visit with friends, I realized what it’s like to be without decent broadband.

I had just introduced the group to Rhett and Link. They’re a couple of guys here in NC who have churned out some hilarious online stuff, including the beloved Facebook Song (video).

About 30 seconds into each spot, the picture would stall while their DSL struggled to catch up. The fact that it locked up was no surprise. What DID surprise me was a remark from one of my frieneds. “Just pause it and wait. We do it all the time.” It was normal to him to start a video, then hit pause while the thing loaded.

Entertainment aside, there are  many reasons why true broadband -especially from fiber to the home networks- is just beginning to show what it can do.

Stacy Higginbotham did a great job explaining the need for fiber in her post to GigaOM, Why every ISP Needs a Fiber-to-the-Home Network.

Phone companies and many cable companies rely on copper that has been in place for decades. Here’s a line from Higginbotham’s post:

“At some point the telcos are going to have to take a hard look at their aging infrastructure and decide how much longer they should poor money into copper, much like you or I might do when evaluating whether or not to fix or junk a 12-year-old car.”

Wilson’s municipal broadband service is fiber to the home. It plugs right into a box on the side of your house.We think it’s the right thing to do, and would love it if the cable company would stop pushing for laws that stop NC cities from doing the same.

No doubt you’ve heard all about the feud between Fox and Time Warner Cable. Here’s a quote from USA Today that sums up the dispute pretty well:

The companies’ current deal expires at midnight tonight, and Fox has threatened to pull its shows — which include the popular American Idol— if no deal is reached. The dispute centers on the price Fox has demanded that Time Warner Cable pay the Fox-owned local stations in 14 markets to continue carrying Fox network shows on the cable systems.

The argument between these two large companies does not affect Greenlight subscribers. The City’s programming remains the same for 2010. In fact, you’ll probably see more HD channels added as the new year progresses.

A handful of City staff will go back to Raleigh next week, Monday, December 14th for a meeting with the Select Committee on High Speed Internet Access in Rural and Urban Areas. The committee is looking into the issue of municipal broadband in NC. The specific study is of H.B. 1252, the Level Playing Field bill that would restrict cities and towns in NC from providing communication services.

We’ll be there again. Many of you came to the most recent meeting and we appreciate it. This one is in the same room, 544 LOB, at 9:30am.

So what happened last time? A couple of attorneys with ties to the cable company came after Wilson with a vengeance. I don’t remember them mentioning one time what commitment their client was making to improve broadband access in our state. Instead, both offered some untruths about how Wilson wanted a cable monopoly. Let that irony sink in for a moment. The cable company is worried that someone else will get a monopoly.

Our city manager mentioned that the City of Wilson didn’t build the community fiber optic network because of money. He mentioned that it was built to make true broadband available to our citizens and to help boost City services such as fire and police. The network won’t be paid off for another 10-12 years, but Wilson was willing to make that investment in its people.

The attorney’s response: It’s always all about money.

His answer shows one of the key differences between his client and a local government organization. Our elected officials won’t make an additional dime because of Greenlight. They made the decision to offer fiber optic service to everyone because Wilson deserves access to this network.

The cable company will eventually improve its bandwidth in big cities. Thanks to our community owned network, Wilson won’t be left behind.

A committee of lawmakers will meet this morning to look at broadband in NC, and may consider the issue of metered billing.

What’s metered billing? Here’s an interesting article from DSL reports, as well as some good forum posts. Essentially, metered billing moves away from the model we have now where you pay a monthly fee for unlimited service. With metered billing, people who access the Internet more often or download more material would pay more than everyone else. Big deal, right? It is. Netflix and other video services offer movies for download, and a host of other services are coming along that rely on heavy usage.

Why are the ISP’s doing this? Because they don’t have enough bandwidth to go around. If they had plenty, they wouldn’t have to figure out ways to make you use less. Wilson’s municipal provider, Greenlight, is an all-fiber optic network that doesn’t have the same limitations of these corporations. Our speeds are faster (10M/10M minimum residential) and there’s no talk of metered billing here.

The House Select Committee on High Speed Internet in Rural Areas will meet at 10am today in room 544 of the Legislative Office Building. If you can join us, we’d love to see you.

My friend Jay Ovittore sent me this note about an important meeting next week. Remember last summer when the cable company rolled out metered billing in Greensboro? The more you view/stream/download, the more you pay? The House is looking at the idea.

“The House Select Committee on High Speed Internet in Rural and Urban Areas will meet Monday, November 23rd at the General Assembly. In a prior meeting it was brought up that they might be interested in tackling the issues of metered billing and data caps on broadband internet service. We have a chance to mobilize and present something to this committee to protect our rights as consumers. “

“It has been proven that competition is the only way to drive prices down and if we allow metered billing and data caps in areas where there is no competitor we will never have a choice. It is your right as a consumer to stand up and do something about this. Please join me and many others in this fight. If you would like to be part of this effort please contact me at jovittore@gmail.com”

Hi, all. The site is back thanks to requests from some of you. We had taken it down while the NC Legislature was out of session, but as one person put it, the background information still applies. So, everything is back and we’ll keep it up.

Many of you have asked how Greenlight is doing these days. The news is good. We’ve seen a recent uptick in new customer sign-ups and we just added the NFL channel to our TV lineup.

Check back here for updates. Thanks to all of you for your interest and encouragement.

Thanks, again, to all of you for your help with the NC Legislature this year. Because our lawmakers are now out of session, we’re taking down this site for a while.

This issue isn’t going away, though, so we’ll post the site again if and when it’s needed. Greenlight continues to add new customers, thanks to you.

Good news for those who care about access to better broadband in NC. After months of wrangling, neither of the bills that were designed to protect broadband monopolies passed. One is still in committee, but it wasn’t completed or signed into law.

This is really encouraging. Wilson continues to add new Greenlight members daily and we’ll keep pushing forward. Thank you for your help, because the social media world really went to bat for us on this one.

That said, the cable company pushed one failed bill in 2007 and two this year. They haven’t made any of them law yet, but I have no doubt they’ll keep trying. HB 1252 may be studied during the winter.

The lawmakers return in May.