Rural Broadband Committee Meeting Today, Nov. 23

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.

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Help Needed: NC House Committee Looks at Metered Billing Monday, Nov. 23.

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”

Save NC Broadband is up and running again

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.