Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Salisbury has an abundance of broadband providers. Spectrum (they bought TWC), AT&T U-verse/AT&T Gigapower, DirecTV, Dish, and Salisbury’s completely unrequired and overpriced Fibrant (Subscribers pay for it not only on through their pricey monthly subscription fee, but they get hammered for it on their water/sewer bills, taxes, and money heavily siphoned from various undernourished city services like our grossly underpaid and understaffed police, streets repair, trash pickup, our firefighters, traffic engineering, and city property upkeep. City-wide Salisbury is a dangerous place to live with break-ins, unsolved killings, street beatings, home invasions, and nothing to stop it.
Working class people of all races are leaving the city. Fibrant is attracting zero business and its the very center of Salisbury’s decimation. Fibrant will never turn the corner and break even in our lifetimes. There are simply not enough people with income enough to support this sinkhole fiber-to-the home fiasco. The other providers offer tremendous high-speed at reasonable prices. When Spectrum fully takes over TWC you will get deals that will pulverize Fibrant.
Okay, Why Wouldn’t Someone Waste Money on Any of Fibrant’s Residential Services or Even Their Business Class?
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 both Moody’s and Fitch who warned the city they face future junk bonding if they didn’t pay back the sewer and water fund. So far no dice.
• Private providers don’t eat your city services alive. Their taxes raise the quality of life in Salsbury. They are Spectrum (formerly TWC). Other Salisbury providers are AT&T U-Verse/Gigapower, and Fibrant (which can’t match speed or price residentially with Spectrum (TWC Maxx residential services). TV providers are Spectrum (They bought TWC), Dish, DirecTV, and IPTV cord cutting approaches. 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.
• The residents of Salisbury don’t own Fibrant. Most persons dwelling in Salisbury have no illusions of ownership over something most didn’t want. We have no control over its shoddy business practices other than not buying it. It is owned by the city government and run by them at enormous loss to our taxpayers and utility payers despite city hall’s former wild claims about its success in “turning the corner” and showing a profit. (They have since admitted they “fibbed” about it.) 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. They’ll only cut some of it if they refinance the debacle. A few months back the city finally fessed up that Fibrant was losing over $3 plus million dollars a year in recent years. Look at the latest city budget (2016-2017) and see the damage Fibrant has rained on the Bury.
• While none of our residents voted to foist the Fibrant debacle on the city taxpayers-–that was left up to our self-proclaimed “visionary” city council who avoided quorum the day of the infamous vote. The mismanagement of Fibrant during the blundering rollout burned up all of the $33 million dollars of the certificates of participation (COPs) from November 2010 to June 2011. The evaporation of funds came from buying large quantities of mismatching recycled equipment, stringing fiber optic on the poles against code, amateur home installation, paying inflated prices for “signal”, and other multi-million dollar reasons that only a forensic audit could uncover. 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 our scary uniform FBI crime stats. Salisbury is a corpse reanimated with ludicrous publicity and spin. There’s a stampead out of here. Wonder why? It’s called Fibrant.
• Fibrant’s TV packages are over-priced. Spectrum (Formerly TWC), U-verse, DirectTV, and Dish are cheaper and 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. If you want to cut the cord and yet maintain many of the cable and satellite channels you can’t beat Sony’s VUE which appears on IPTV devices like ROKU, FireFox TV, Apple TV, Play Station, and many others.
• Fibrant’s internet services, while more stable than they once were, are still plagued by some periods of instability.
• Fibrant’s TV channel packages are outclassed by Spectrum (formerly 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 offers a form of TV everywhere 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”. Our current city hall is not interested in your wellbeing–they don’t provide up to snuff city services or policing. 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, “magic math”, and backroom deals to flourish?
• Many of the internet and TV providers will renegotiate their prices through a retention specialist. Fibrant does not renegotiate if you can no longer afford them. The private providers acknowledge that a customer retained is better than a customer lost.
• It’s a fact of life the big boys possess immense deep pockets allowing them to keep up with the latest technological innovations and buy quantities of equipment at far cheaper prices than Fibrant can even imagine. And a municipal government with parasites can ramp 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, your taxes and fees 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 Spectrum’s marketing and advertising and it will be everywhere eating pitiful Fibrant alive.
• Fibrant is priced out of range of the city’s poor (27.2% of the population), many of whom lack computers. And the fact is most people don’t care about or need terrific high-speed. But they can get it from the Spectrum and AT&T U-verse/AT&T Gigapower.
• Fibrant’s grossly over-priced VOIP phone ($45 a month) is non competitive with the outstanding MagicJackGO, Google Voice (FREE), 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 smartphones at home. Fibrant is nowhere in this picture.
• 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 city council with its lacking moral compass. For that reason alone many persons especially business owners and person 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. Folks these are cybercrimes your “visionary” city council took part in. Check this out:
Is Fibrant Watching You? Fibrant Subscribers Beware
• Salisbury is flat-lined as a liveable and safe city. 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 great 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 stampeading out of here. Fibrant is not going to attract people to this non-destination. People can find high-speed internet elsewhere in truly livable, thriving, and safer communities.
Video: The Stick-Up: The City of Salisbury’s Fibrant Heist
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
