While others preen, Wilson supplies service

Today's News & Observer leads with a story about area cities "preening" for attention from Google, which has announced a pilot program to wire one community for high-speed, fiber-optic Internet connections. It will be a demonstration project to show what high-speed connections can mean for a community.

Notice the sidebar to the story: "Wired Wilson." Wilson, unlike its neighbor Rocky Mount and thousands of other cities across the country, is not vying for Google's favor. Wilson already has the high-speed connection that Google is offering to one lucky community, to be named later. Wilson City Council took a $28 million gamble on a plan to connect the entire city with fiber-optic cables, offering Internet speeds of up to one gigabit per second. That's the speed Google is proposing. According to today's story, 20 percent of city residents have already signed up, well on the way toward the city's goal of 30 percent connectivity by the end of next year.

Wilson has received some statewide notice for its foresighted venture into fiber, and it has received a lot of grief from the existing Internet providers who don't want competition from a municipal government. Legislative efforts promoted by these legacy cable suppliers to prohibit cities from offering this service have thus far failed. I signed up for Wilson's Greenlight service and have been pleased with it. My major motivation was saving money. By bundling Greenlight's Internet, cable and phone services, we are saving about $40 a month compared to our previous expenses with separate phone and cable/Internet service. The download speeds with Greenlight's basic service are noticeably faster than before, even with our computers, which would be considered antiquated by technophiles' standards.

But the big advantage to Wilson in Greenlight is not found among typical residential customers like me. Rather, the advantage is to business applications and technical uses. BB&T, for example, can use this ultra-high-speed service to upload/downloads tons of data from its financial transaction processing operations. A computer software or graphics business would find this service appealing, even essential. City officials, parrying criticism from the corporate competitors, contend that information transfer is a public utility, like water, sewer, electricity and natural gas, which many cities have provided for decades.

So while other cities hopefully cross their fingers for Google's selection, Wilson already has what the others desire.

Apple gets state deal; Wilson is ready

The General Assembly has approved some tax breaks that are intended to lure Apple Computer to North Carolina. The legendary creator of iPods, iPhones and iMacs plans to build a server facility, presumably the service its iTunes store and other services. Two weeks earlier, Wilson City Council met in closed session to discuss a potential industrial client. Council took no action on the matter.

Coincidence? Maybe. After all, Wilson County has several available industrial sites that could catch the attention of a new industry. These closed-door meetings are not all that rare, and most of them never result in anything.

Still ... Wilson has what a company like Apple wants: a super-high-speed, state-of-the-art fiber optic network that would be ideal for a server farm such as the one Apple wants to build somewhere in North Carolina, or perhaps in another Southeastern state. Apple's server farm is just the sort of high-tech industrial client the city of Wilson had hoped to attract with its gamble on a $28 million fiber-to-the-home network. Apple needs a "big pipe" to send its iTunes songs, television shows and movies to customers. Wilson's 100 MB upload/download speeds provide that big pipe, and it's already in place.

I have no idea whether there is a connection between the state's provision for tax advantages for Apple and Wilson's fiber network, but it would make sense for Apple to look at what Wilson has to offer.

Wilson is ahead of Raleigh once again

Once again, the city of Wilson is ahead of Raleigh. Last year, The Independent Weekly ran a laudatory article about Wilson's high-speed Internet service, trademarked as GreenLight. The Raleigh News & Observer is reporting today that Raleigh's plans for a 50-block downtown Wi-Fi service faces some opposition. Some critics are complaining that the $180,000 construction plus $15,000 in annual maintenance the Raleigh network would cost could be better spent.

Wilson has offered free downtown Wi-Fi for a couple of years. Amtrak passengers have been able to check their e-mail and conduct Internet business while waiting for their connections. A number of restaurants and other businesses offer free Wi-Fi within their buildings. I'm using my own home Wi-Fi connection to write this column, and my computer shows four other Wi-Fi networks (my neighbors') within range of my home.

Wilson's low-key and low-cost Wi-Fi network sailed through with little criticism. Many of the local critics confused the Wi-Fi network with the city's fiber-optic network (GreenLight), whose $28 million cost is expected to be paid by Internet, phone and cable TV customers. If the fiber system works according to the business plan, it will be turning a profit in just a few years. The Wi-Fi network, meanwhile, provides a simple but much-appreciated enhancement for downtown workers and visitors at relatively little cost for the city.

Its up-and-running Wi-Fi network puts Wilson ahead of Raleigh and on pace with more progressive (and costly) cities such as Chapel Hill.