Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Salisbury is overloaded with broadband providers. Charter Spectrum (formerly TWC), AT&T U-verse, AT&T Gigapower, DirecTV, Dish, and Salisbury’s unrequired and overpriced Fibrant (Subscribers pay for it not only on through their pricey monthly subscription fee, but they get hammered on their water/sewer bills, taxes, and money heavily siphoned from various diminished city services like the police who are grossly underpaid and understaffed, streets repair, trash pickup, traffic engineering, and city property upkeep.
Okay, Why Wouldn’t Someone Plunk Down Cash for Any of Fibrant’s Residential Services or Even Their Business Class?
(1) A huge reason Salisbury’s city government “downsized” city employees or has them doing double duty in the survival mode is due to Fibrant. The city has a grossly understaffed police department making low wages who can not effectively patrol a crime ridden and drug infested Salisbury. The City’s bond rating was downgraded by Moody’s and Fitch who warned the city they face future junk bonding if they didn’t pay back the sewer and water fund. No far no dice.
(2) Private providers don’t eat your city services alive. They are Charter Spectrum (formerly TWC). Other Salisbury providers are AT&T U-Verse/Gigapower, and Fibrant, which can’t match speed or price with Charter Spectrum (TWC Maxx residential services). TV providers are Charter Spectrum/TWC, Dish, DirecTV, and IPTV cord cutting. Let’s not forget Fibrant’s TV and VOIP services are grossly overpriced and non-competitive. Lest we forget if you run into problems paying for Fibrant, they can cut off your water and sewer.
(3) The residents of Salisbury do not own Fibrant. Most persons dwelling in Salisbury have no illusions of ownership over something most didn’t want. We have no control over its business practices other than not buying it. It is owned by the city government and run by them at enormous losses to the taxpayers and utility payers despite city hall’s wild claims about its success in “turning the corner” and showing a profit. (Hiding employee salaries doesn’t count). Fibrant has never remotely broken even and by any rational calculations never will while they drown in the ocean of free market competition. Besides the $7.6 million dollars owed to the water and sewer funds, Fibrant still has a heavy debt and interest to pay back until 2029. A few months back the city finally fessed up that Fibrant was losing over $3 plus million dollars a year in recent years.
(4) While no one I know voted to foist the Fibrant debacle on the city taxpayers–that was left up to our “visionary” city council who avoided quorum the day of the infamous vote. The mismanagement of Fibrant during the blundering soft rollout burned out all of the $33 million dollars in the certificates participation from November 2010 to June 2011. The evaporation of funds came from buying large quantities of mismatching recycled equipment. That soft rollout swamped Fibrant’s future before it got underway. Of course city hall likes to fantasize about an utter failure being a triumphant success through the use of “Magic Math”. Fibrant was covered over with puff pieces and smoke screening just like Salisbury’s soaring 27.2% poverty, horrific city public school performances (D’s and F’s on the State report card), and the scarey FBI crime stats. Salisbury is a corpse reanimated with ludicrous publicity and spin. All American City? Look around.
(5) All of Fibrant’s services are more expensive than their incumbent competitors: TWC Maxx becoming Charter Spectrum, Dish, Direct TV, Google Voice, MagicJackGo, and dozens of other VOIP phone providers. Hey big guy if you got suckered into Fibrant you are paying its stated price and fees, but you are also being DOUBLE DIPPED by the hidden costs of your water and sewer utilities being siphoned off by Fibrant. The city finds other ways of utilizing Magic Math to rob Peter and pay Paul with YOUR money. They’ve turned your pockets upside down and you don’t even realize unless you start hunting through the “Magic Math”. Even taxpayers and utility bill payers who didn’t get chumped into buying Fibrant services are paying for it in their utility bills and taxes.
(6) Fibrant’s TV packages are over-priced. TWC (soon to become Charter Spectrum), U-verse, DirectTV, and Dish are cheaper and vastly superior. Keep in mind all the great channels available on IPTV internet enabled devices like Roku 3, Amazon Fire TV, and so forth. You get at least 20 local channels for FREE with a rabbit ear antenna in brilliant full screen HD.
(7) Fibrant’s internet services, while more stable than it once was, are still plagued by some periods of instability and a few lengthy outages.
(8) Fibrant’s TV channel packages are outclassed by TWC, U-Verse, DirecTV, and Dish. All offer superior TV packages at cheaper prices. Everyone of the big boys offer TV aps for our PCs, Apples, IPADs, Android phones, IPHONEs, and gaming devices. Fibrant just offered a form of TV everywhere that is difficult to operate. There is no reason for buying Fibrant TV. Not even the moonbat excuse of “supporting my city”. What drivel. I say as a consumer “I salute my wallet above all”. I’m a consumer–please me. A corporation or a municipal government can be equally greedy and conniving. You the consumer gets the pick of the litter. What dimdot would sacrifice their economic betterment for a city that cares nothing about them and allows cronyism, coverups, and backroom deals to flourish?
(9) TWC/Charter Spectrum, AT&T U-Verse, and Dish customers can renegotiate their prices with a 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.
(10) 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 than Fibrant can even imagine. And if you have parasites in a municipal government they can ram up your costs. The big boys do not have municipal parasites scoring on deals. Salisbury is stuck and has no real money other than the city’s reserve funds or to slash away more municipal services and more city workers with gusto. Meanwhile all of the providers have immense deep pockets for state-of-the-marketing. Wait until you see Charter Spectrum marketing and advertising and it will be everywhere eating pitiful Fibrant alive.
(11) Fibrant is priced out of range of the city’s poor, many of whom lack computers. And the fact is most people don’t care about or need terrific high-speed.
(12) Fibrant’s grossly over-priced VOIP phone ($45 a month) is non competitive with Google Voice (Free), MagicJackGO, 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 this picture.
(13) It was revealed in a Salisbury City Hall email exchange uncovered through a RFP public information request that Fibrant hacked customer emails to get information for our rogue city council. For that reason alone many persons especially business owners and person who are outspoken against City Hall would NEVER want City Hall peeping through their emails. Does city hall have an enemies list? City Hall is well known for vendettas against anyone who speaks out against them. Gang these are cybercrimes your “vibrant-visionary” city council took part in. Check this out:
Is Fibrant Watching You? Fibrant Subscribers Beware
(14) Salisbury is breaking down fast. People here are experiencing a lack of well-paying jobs, a lack of city-wide safety where shootings, killings, robberies, beatings, arsons, vandalism, and break-ins happen with regularity. The city schools are plagued by bad end of year test grades, gangs violence, drug abuse, and regular lockdowns. No wonder people, with enough financial wherewithal are selling their houses or abandoning them. Young college educated people are stampeding out of here. Fibrant is not going to attract people to this non-destination. They can find high-speed internet elsewhere in truly livable and safer communities.
Fibrant a Necessity in Salisbury’s Already Overcrowded Broadband Field? What?
Video: Todd TV–Fibrant Magic Math
Fibrant’s Losses Mount. Is City Hall Hearing Footsteps?
Video: Salisbury, N.C. City Council Fibrant Budget Discussion on February 2nd
