S1209 in Finance Committee Tuesday, plus a surprise from Rep. Faison

Been a busy couple of days on the issue of next-generation broadband in our state. First, unless they change the date again, Senate Bill 1209 should come up in the Senate Finance Committee this Tuesday, June 1st, at 1pm in the Legislative office building; room 544. Yes, it’s scheduled for the first day back after [...]

Study: U.S. now 26th in global broadband speed

The newest information from Ookla shows that the US is still losing ground in the global move to faster broadband speeds. Here’s how the US, who invented the Internet, fares against the top five countries: 1. South Korea – 34.14 Mbps (megabits per second) 2. Latvia – 24.29 Mbps 3. Moldova – 21.37 Mbps 4. [...]

Monopoly-protection bill meets NC Finance Committee today at 1pm

**Update** The bill was pulled from today’s meeting, apparently to study the issue some more. Thanks to all of you who contacted your lawmakers. I’ll let you know more as it happens. The Senate Finance committee takes up S1209 today at 1pm in room 544 of the Legislative Office Building downtown. A couple of quick [...]

Private industry says latest monopoly-protection bill is bad for economy, NC

Google, Alcatel-Lucent, Intel and other industry representatives are asking NC lawmakers not to pass new restrictions on municipal broadband and to abandon Senate Bill 1209. They understand that city or county owned broadband is a good thing for business, not a bad thing as suggested by some of the cable and telecom giants. The full [...]

Winston Salem Journal: Telecoms can’t expect people to keep waiting

The Winston Salem Journal did an excellent job covering the municipal broadband issue this week. The writers understood that the people of NC shouldn’t have to wait around for cable and telecom companies to improve their systems. US broadband speeds simply haven’t kept up with many countries because the copper cable and telephone wires are [...]

WBTV Charlotte nails it with fiber optics story

WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte did a really effective job this week explaining why fiber optics is better than the old fashioned cable lines. They covered our friends in Salisbury, NC, just a few hours from here, who are planning to launch their own fiber optic network later this summer. They will join Wilson [...]

This year’s anti-muni bill = S1209

We have a number for this year’s broadband bill in the NC Senate. Senator David Hoyle has officially introduced S1209.  Unlike the earlier three bills that were introduced in 2007 and 2009, this one is short and includes just a few major points. The writer(s) of the draft have dropped the “Level Playing Field” title [...]

Greeenlight to serve Wilson Public School campuses, offices

This photo is pretty cool for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a concrete indicator that Greenlight will help students, teachers and administrators in Wilson County’s public schools access true broadband. They can use it for testing, distance learning and all sorts of applications. It’s great for a second reason, too. While the schools are [...]

Lawmaker: We should promote other models, including the municipal

The Associated Press covered the NC broadband debate this weekend, and the News and Observer picked it up. It mentioned that another committee is already studying this topic and quoted the chair of it: “Leaving this solely to the telecoms and the cable companies has not gotten us the best result we could get, and [...]

Draft of this year’s NC anti-municipal broadband bill (4th attempt by the cable company)

Here’s the draft of Senator Hoyle’s (D-Gaston) broadband bill for 2010. It’s only a few paragraphs: doesn’t take long to read, but its effects would be substantial. Essentially, the State government would force local cities and towns to hold an election before borrowing money to build a community-owned broadband network. This will slow down broadband [...]