[TriLUG] OT: URGENT: H.129 to be heard in Thursday's Finance Committee!

[David Burton]

On Mon-Wed, Mar 14-16, *2011*  many TriLUG participants wrote:

> *[snip]*



Back in 2011 there was a lively discussion about HB-129
<http://ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2011&BillID=h129&submitButton=Go>
and
the municipal Internet services offered by Salisbury and Wilson. Well,
today I read an unsettling article about Salisbury's system. They have
wonderfully high-speed service, and they've apparently just upgraded the
base-level speed from 20 mbps to 50 mbps symmetric(!). The starting price
<http://www.fibrant.com/Packages---Pricing.aspx> of $45/mo is about the
same as commercial services. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they're
not trying to extract any profits from it, the project has accumulated so
much debt that the city's bond rating has just been lowered:

Carolina Journal News Reports
Salisbury Sewer Fees Prop Up Broadband
*Moody’s cites debts of Fibrant as reason to downgrade bond rating*
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=11193


Note: in mid-March, 2011, we were discussing v.2 of the bill, but it went
through several subsequent revisions before it became law. Here's a diff:
http://www.diffchecker.com/jccyw6v5
Here's a different format diff:
http://burtonsys.com/H129-2011_v2_vs_v5_DiffNow_Comparison_Report.html

Dave