Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ This morning I read in the city government’s “newsletter” an editorial stating: “Comcast and TimeWarner Cable, the two largest cable providers in the nation, are also merging in an umpteen billion dollar deal. Comcast is rated by its customers as the worst cable company and TimeWarner is rated second worst. (Salisbury citizens, get Fibrant. It’s great and we own it!). ” The editorial failed to mention where the ratings came from and that the two independent standards for consumer ratings J.D. Power and Consumer Reports only mention the top rung private internet, TV, and VOIP phone providers. No small wonder, municipal broadband companies are generally poor in service, products, and are non competitive in price. Fibrant has NOT found a way onto any ratings lists so we can assume they rate far lower than Time Warner Cable and their potential buyer Comcast.
In Philadelphia I had Comcast, FIOS, and AT&T. All provided excellent services and the best available speeds at that time. Having a pick of many providers I would jump services for the best deals possible or renegotiate with one of their retention specialists. I always paid the lowest prices possible. Same here in Salisbury where I have dealt with Time Warner Cable. At one time I even considered Fibrant until I saw their exorbitant costs, weighty one year contracts, abysmal TV channel selection and lack of Internet enabled TV apps. The grossly overpriced phone service was not even a consideration in Salisbury’s overcrowded field of VOIP phones.
The city “newletter” also stated: “(Salisbury citizens, get Fibrant. It’s great and we own it!)” We 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 great losses ($73 million dollars) to the taxpayers, utility payers, and storm water fee 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 broken even and likely never will. This upcoming year Fibrant will be rocked with an enormous $3 million dollar debt and interest payments on its certificates of participation. This $3 million dollar pound of flesh will be extracted from the city every year until 2029 unless bankruptcy intercedes.
Please also note Salisbury’s meltdown in city services as witnessed in its understaffed police and fire departments, the lackluster city response to plowing the city streets and properly spreading brine, the Amazonia like growth of weeds and grass in the spring and summer on city properties due to a lack of groundskeepers. By golly gee our alleged 3 Fibrant employees are scuffling to change city lights, stop signs, and heavens knows what else. Folks, city services are in horrific shape here in the 107th ranked city/town in North Carolina.
While no one I know voted to foist the City’s of Salisbury’s 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 in the infamous soft rollout burned out all of the $33 million dollars in the certificates participation from November 2010 to June 2011. The burnout of funds came from buying mismatching recycled equipment in great quantities. That soft rollout appears to have ended Fibrant’s future before it got underway. Of course if you read the City of Salisbury’s “newsletter” you might not have recognized what was going on at Fibrant. It was covered over with puff pieces and smoke screening just like Salisbury’s soaring 28% poverty, poor city public school performances, and FBI crime stats. Salisbury is a corpse made to look alive by an image conscious/imaginative publicity mill on East Innes.
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 Plus 2014, and dozens of other VOIP phone providers.
• 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 100 Mbps in the Charlotte region (including Salisbury) and better upload speeds. Fibrant’s internet has suffered few internet outages in recent months and mostly in isolated areas of the city, despite some of their aging recycled equipment. A friend who uses Fibrant says it is more stable than it once was when they suffered record outages. Unless someone requires a large symmetrical upload, most consumers would have no need of Fibrant’s costly services. My upload with TWC is around 6 Mbps up. It works great for uploading Vimeo video files.
• 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.
