Municipal Broadband Untouched. Session is Over. Thank you!

Thanks to you and your participation in the process, lawmakers saw that protecting decades-old monopolies isn’t the slam dunk the cable company had made it out to be. The NC General Assembly wrapped up the year early Sunday morning without taking action on municipal broadband. This year was the biggest battle friends of community broadband had [...]

Dismal speeds from most providers still the norm in the US

Yahoo! News has a good story today about Internet access speeds, and the news is no surprise. In spite of millions of dollars of slick advertising and cartoon characters, we’re still slow in this country. This line sums it up best. “When it comes to Internet performance, in the aggregate, none of us are exactly [...]

Paper: Muni Broadband Bill Quietly Tucked Into Another Bill

Okay, I know there’s a lot to keep up with in this ongoing battle, but there’s a new development you need to know about. According to the Greensboro News and Record’s Mark Binker, the municipal broadband moratorium from senate bill 1209 has been moved to another bill, house bill 1840; apparently to get around a [...]

Clarifications to News and Observer Article About NC Broadband Bill

The News and Observer published an article this week about the broadband fight in NC. While the reporter did his best to cover a big issue in a relatively small amount of space, some important points were left out. First, you should know two things: Before building our fiber optic network, Wilson asked the cable [...]

Better bandwidth is about much more than cable

Wilson is exempt from S1209, but the bill would make it much more difficult for NC cities or towns to build similar networks in the future. As we watch the bill make its way through the legislature, here are some ways that Wilson’s community owned fiber optic network is helping the people of Wilson right [...]

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 [...]