Verizon leaving Durham
Durham, North Carolina May 20th, 2009Durham, unfortuantely, has been somewhat at a disadvantage to the rest of the Triangle area with respect to DSL service. Verizon’s DSL service has always been fairly bad. Friends of mine that have worked at ISPs in the area have been universal in their dislike of Verizon’s DSL service. Other areas of the triangle have been getting some competition to Time Warner Cable’s internet with the rollout of AT&T’s UVerse service which provides internet and cable over fiber optic lines. I had hoped that Durham would get Verizon’s equivalent FiOS which is also a fiber to the home service. However, it looks like Verizon has decided to pull the plug and sell all its customers in NC (and other states) to Frontier Communications. Whether this is good or bad for Durham remains to be seen, however a similar divestment in the north east has not gone very well. So, we’ll have to see how things go. I wish we could get something similar to Wilson’s Greenlight here in Durham as I think it would really differentiate us and encourage more people to consider moving to Durham, but I don’t hold out any hope that our elected leaders can be that forward thinking.
May 20th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
No kidding… wouldn't the Greenlight service be nice? Fiber optic, straight to the house. Hopefully one day. For now, I'd be happy with real options.
May 20th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
It would make so much sense for Durham to lay fiber to everyone's house. There's so many things that could be done with it. Besides the obvious of phone, cable, and internet, they could do real-time water monitoring or real-time power monitoring (with an agreement with the power company) or things no one has even thought of yet.
May 26th, 2009 at 2:36 am
does anyone really know if Frontier Communication bought out Verizon in NC or are they just all talk ?
May 26th, 2009 at 2:58 am
Yes, Frontier bought all the Verizon franchises in Durham.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Totally unrelated to your post, but I wanted you to know that your blog was the second thing to come up when I googled "arquebus fired from the wharf." Thought you'd enjoy that.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Ha! That's funny. What was first? (It's first when I search.)
May 28th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I don't remember now. Some G&S-related site, maybe.
August 4th, 2009 at 3:42 am
What is bad about South Durham's DSL? Is it uptime/stability issues? Do you not get the 3Mbps advertised? I currently connect using a USB760 WWAN card in a cradlepoint router. We fluctuate between 750kbps and 1.1Mbps. Now shopping for something a bit faster since on the lower end we're not even able to watch streaming video without incessant buffering. Verizon DSL at $29/mo and 3Mbps is more appealing than TWC at $49.95/mo at 7Mbps.
August 4th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Good luck. Verizon won't even offer to sell DSL here anymore (at least it didn't last time I checked. My previous house up near the South Square area couldn't get DSL because they kept saying I was too far from the CO. They kept promising to put in a new CO so it would be closer, but it never happened. I got so fed up with it I went with cable internet. At my current house near Parkwood, I believe I could have gotten DSL, but seriously, 3Mbps compared to 7Mbps is a huge difference. And, $29/month is only the entry rate for the first few months (even with DSL). I've never yet found a comparable long-term rate for DSL (same price, same speed).
However, that's not the worst thing. My friends at local ISPs have been universal in their hate of Verizon DSL. Apparently, the way they do it is just horrible (for the ISP, even). At least with cable it works (most of the time) without any hassle. I'd really love to have fiber to the home, though, like Wilson, NC has.
February 19th, 2010 at 3:53 am
It appears the N&O link doesn't work anymore so here is another link with info about Verizon leaving NC.
http://www.thesouthernhighlandreader.com/verizon-...