Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ On July 1st Fibrant’s internet takes a step toward becoming more consumer attractive in price and speeds offered. On July 1st Fibrant’s internet will make these price and speed changes.
• 50 Mbps download/50 Mbps upload for $45 dollars a month.
• 75 Mbps download/75 Mbps upload for $65 dollars a month.
• 100 Mbps download/100 Mbps upload for $85 dollars a month.
• 1 gigabyte download/1 gigabyte upload for $165 dollars a month. (Not yet available when we inquired)
Back in November of 2010 when Fibrant first rolled out I was disappointed in their non competitive internet price and speed offerings. The price and speeds were pretty chintzy for a Fiber optic network. Both Lisco in Fairfield, Iowa and the EPB fiber optic network in Chattanooga started off offering 100 Mbps at very cheap prices. Their networks were professionally run from the outset and they became successes almost from the start. If Fibrant got out of the gate with experienced broadband leadership it likely wouldn’t have run into all the trouble it encountered.
Fibrant’s internet is more tempting now because of its upgrade in speed and more competitive price. What would likely hold me back from subscribing to Fibrant internet are the following:
• Excessive drag from symmetrical upload/download. A 50X50 Mbps up and down is slower moving around the net and opening graphically intensive websites due to the push-pull drag created by the symmetrical upload and download. A 50 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload is going to be faster than the Fibrant symmetrical 50X50. Fibrant’s upload is better, but most people don’t need anything near that much upload.
• Fibrant’s 1 year contract would be deal killer for me. I’d want to be able to leave if I was unsatisfied or if suddenly I had to move outside of Salisbury.
• Fibrant doesn’t have retention specialists so you can’t renegotiate prices with them if they jack the price up on you.
• While Fibrant has redundancy (backup) now, some of its recycled equipment is aging and may create downtime.
• Fibrant’s service is said to be spotty and sometimes difficult to reach by phone.
Most people I know wouldn’t touch Fibrant’s TV offerings due to its non competitive pricing, channel selections, and lack of “TV everywhere” apps. And some people “cut the cord” and use IPTV devices like Roku 3 or Apple TV, and an indoor digital antenna. “Cord cutting” is a major savings.
The Fibrant Cat-5 VOIP phone at $45 dollars a month is priced way out of competition. There’s just too many VOIP phones out there like MagicJack Plus, Google Voice, and Basic Talk.
