Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ The City of Salisbury, N.C. is a financial wreck with little future for at least the next 7 to 10 years due in large part to the Fibrant Debacle and the lack of any intelligent and ethical leadership in City Hall. Get it straight, Salisbury has limited city services such as an understaffed and underfunded police department unable to fully patrol the city’s many neighborhoods and firefighters short of manpower and proper equipment. City properties go untended. Trash and the street departments are hurting. The City of Salisbury is running on fumes due in very large part to terribly mismanaged Fibrant rollout and the fact they could never compete with deep-pocketed Time Warner Cable, AT&T U-Verse, DirecTV, and DISH and numerous inexpensive and FREE VOIP phone providers.
Touting the City of Salisbury as a gig city will only deepen Salisbury’s financial ruin. The city of Salisbury can not compete with North Carolina’s other cities, with far more livable conditions and about to possess gig capacity or more in 2015. In 2015 Time Warner Cable will introduce business class 10 gig X 10 Gig Fiber optic into Charlotte Region (Salisbury is in this region) with truly deep-pocketed marketing already crushing Fibrant at every turn. On top of that both AT&T U-Verse will rollout a Gig in the Charlotte Region (Salisbury is part of the Charlotte region). For maximum devastation Time Warner Cable will deliver residential TWC Maxx to the Charlotte region (Salisbury included) with extreme high-speeds at cheapo prices.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/07/31/5078583/why-were-bringing-ultra-broadband.html
The two deep-pocketed powerhouses Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-Verse already mangled Fibrant in the areas of internet and TV. Other VOIP providers like MagicJack, Vonage, Google Voice and others (not to mention smart phones) pole-axed Fibrant’s ridiculously over-priced Cat 5 VOIP.
FACT: Fibrant in its entire history from November 2010 until mid July 2014 only sold to three 100 Mbps subscribers. I repeat: only three 100 Mbps subscribers. The three were upgraded to 1 gig this July. This tells us that Fibrant was a complete flop in its ability to sell super high speed internet. The city blew $33 million dollars on certificates of participation and many millions more in debt and interest, against the advice of Wall Street analysts and the John Locke Society who predicted Fibrant would fail like many other Municipal Telecoms did across the United States.
FACT: Moody’s sagely downgraded the City of Salisbury’s Bond Rating due to Fibrant gorging themselves to the tune of 7.6 million dollars on the city’s water and sewer funds. To date Fibrant has only paid back 1% interest on the certificates of participation and drew a warning from Moody’s that if the Salisbury did not pay back that 7.6 million dollar debt to the water and sewer funds, Salisbury would transform to junk-bond status at the next Moody’s Review. Junk Bond status is a lock for Salisbury which will have a further devastating affect on the city and its ability to borrow.
FACT: If you subscribe to any Fibrant service you are being double-dipped on the price. Not only are you paying Fibrant’s high subscriber prices, you are also paying for Fibrant in hidden ways by having your water and sewer utility bill being jacked up, as well as suffering diminished city services. If you are dwelling in Salisbury and not subscribing to the “debacle”, you are being forced to pay big for it through higher utilities, taxes, and diminished city services. Friend you’ve been ripped off big.
FACT: The city has misrepresented itself in a very large way about Fibrant’s phoney success in turning the corner. Remember city hall is the same people responsible for the cover-up of the “mutual termination” of the former city manager and his golden parachute and the city’s former no contract public information directors severance package. City Hall has steadfastly illegally obstructed Freedom of Information Act inquiries from us, private concerned citizens, Charlotte TV stations, and the local print news. What does that tell you about city Hall’s transparency and honesty? It isn’t happening amigo.
FACT: Recently it was revealed that Fibrant was engaged in spying on those who opposed city hall’s agenda. It is well known that any internet provider can read its subscribers emails. What about a city hall with a growing reputation for dishonesty and cover-ups?
Okay, why wouldn’t someone plunk down cash for any of Fibrant’s services?
• All of Fibrant’s services are more expensive than the incumbent competitors: Time Warner Cable, AT&T U-verse, Dish, Direct TV, Google Voice, MagicJack Go, and dozens of other VOIP phone providers. Remember any subscriber is also paying for Fibrant in hidden ways through utility hikes and city taxes.
• Fibrant’s cheapest TV package, made mostly of FREE TV broadcast channels, is free with a cheapo indoor TV antenna
• FIbrant’s internet services are undersold by Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-verse. Time Warner Cable will soon be offering business class 10 gig X 10 gig and extremely high-speed TWC Maxx in the residential class in the Charlotte region (including Salisbury) in 2015.
• Fibrant’s TV channel packages are outclassed by TWC, U-Verse, DirecTV, and Dish. All offer superior TV packages at cheaper prices. All of the big boys offer TV aps for our PCs, Apples, IPADs, Android phones, IPHONEs, and gaming devices. Fibrant missed the boat here and its got to be killing their TV package sales. There is no reason for buying Fibrant TV.
• Fibrant has an expensive one year contract that stands an impediment to signing up especially in an unstable economy. Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-Verse do not have contracts.
• It’s a fact of life the big boys possess immense deep pockets for which they can keep up with the latest technological innovations and buy quantities of equipment at far cheaper prices. Fibrant can do neither. They are stuck and have no real money other than the city’s reserve funds or to slash away more city services.
• Time Warner Cable, AT&T U-Verse, and Dish customers can renegotiate their prices with the companies retention specialist. Fibrant does not renegotiate if you can no longer afford them. The big boys acknowledge that a customer retained is better than a customer lost.
• Fibrant is priced out of range of the city’s poor and working class, many of whom don’t even have computers.
• Fibrant’s grossly over-priced VOIP phone ($45 a month) is simply non competitive with Google Voice (Free), MagicJack Plus (2014) and numerous other VOIP companies in Salisbury’s crowded field. It’s a fact that many people are moving completely away from landlines and using smart phones at home. Fibrant is nowhere in the picture anymore.
• Fibrant is managed by an at-a-distance contract manager working often in Georgia, Matthews, N.C. and Florida and claims to have only 3 full time employees who wear a lot of hats. I kid you not. Wave at them whenever you see them performing their multitude of tasks like changing traffic signs.
