As Google brought fiber to the Triangle and Ting brought fiber to nearby Holly Springs, we here in Fuquay-Varina quite rightly started to ask when it’d be our turn. As Ting said in its announcement post on ting.com/fuquayvarina, “How about now? Does now work for you?”
Ting “crazy fast” fiber Internet is indeed coming to Fuquay-Varina. What’s more, because of the fiber the Town of
Fuquay-Varina had the forethought to put in place, plus the work Ting has completed down the road in Holly Springs, Ting tells Suburban Living: Fuquay-Varina, they’ll be able to get started here much sooner than might otherwise be possible.
“We’ll be breaking ground in Fuquay-Varina this summer,” says Adam Eisner, Ting’s VP of Networks. “We expect to have the first fiber Internet customer online by the end of 2018. Once that important milestone is reached, we’ll begin lighting up whole streets and neighborhoods all over town.”
If that’s all you need to know, you can pre-order at ting.com/fuquayvarina. A pre-order costs $9 and unlocks free installation.
“Pre-orders actually do help shape the fiber network build,” Eisner says. “If we see a bunch of pre-orders in one neighborhood, you know we’re going to do our best to fiber to the people in that neighborhood as soon as we possibly can.”
What is Fiber Internet?
‘Fiber’ refers to fiber optics. Basically, instead of shooting signals across old copper wires, fiber sends light pulses down strands of optical glass. Fiber is the first infrastructure that’s built for the Internet. By contrast, every other technology up to this point must compromise and adapt in order to deliver Internet access.
Fiber is fast. Only fiber can offer true, symmetrical gigabit (1,000 Mbps) service. Fiber uses light as opposed to electrical signals and so latency, an Achilles heel of copper networks, ceases to be an issue. Latency is, basically, the time it takes for a packet you send over the Internet to receive a response. You may have heard online gamers refer to it as “ping.” Think of latency as time off the line; if your Internet connection is slow to accelerate, it’ll rarely have a chance to reach the top speed you’re paying for.
Fiber is also reliable. There are no interference issues to deal with like there can be with copper wires. There’s no slow-down when multiple people are online. Fiber offers capacity that copper simply can’t. In short, everyone in a fiber Internet house, in a fiber neighborhood or in the town itself, can be doing whatever they want to do online without ever getting in each other’s way. Compare that with copper networks where we’re used to daily slow-downs. Especially around dinnertime when everyone is trying to do Internet things at once and realizing that the old copper networks just aren’t up to the task.
Fiber Internet isn’t just about doing present day things like telecommuting, video conferencing, video gaming and streaming TV. Fiber is a real investment in a community and has far-reaching benefits for education and entrepreneurship and so much more.
“Fuquay-Varina is one of the fastest growing towns in North Carolina. High-speed fiber optic broadband is the key to modern communications, economic growth, and access to a world of opportunities. Having Ting bring ‘crazy fast fiber Internet’ to Fuquay-Varina is very positive for our fast-growing town. It provides greater choices for citizens to connect to the Internet and helps the town prepare for the future,” said Mayor John W. Byrne.
It’s hard to sum up all the benefits fiber brings to a growing town like Fuquay-Varina. The fact that a fiber connection can boost a home’s value by as much as 3.1% according to the results of a study undertaken by the Fiber to the Home Council Americas (FTTH), though, is indication that the larger market sees the potential and the immediate value that fiber brings.
Who is Ting?
Ting has been around for about six years. They started out with a cell phone service that is repeatedly recognized by Consumer Reports readers as a top choice, beating out the big providers every year for the last five years. The company ascribes much of its success to its simple, fair and honest approach to pricing and customer service.
It’s the same approach the company brings to home Internet service.
Ting is part of a company called Tucows, which has been on the Internet for more than 25 years. The company has a long history of offering Internet service, right back to the days of dial-up, those CDs that seemed to come endlessly in the mail and those screechy modems we used to use to get online.
Evidence of how they conduct the fiber Internet part of their business can be seen just down the road in Holly Springs. There, the company has hired local people to run the local operation, to get fiber in the ground and to connect homes and businesses back to the larger network. They offer regular updates on the construction process. They’re present at community events and they sponsor important pieces of the community, like Ting Park, the rebadged Athletic Complex.
“I regularly meet residents from Fuquay-Varina at Ting events in Holly Springs. They are frustrated with their existing Internet options and often ask if Ting will expand to serve Fuquay-Varina,” says Todd Rubin, Area Manager for Ting. “Likewise, Fuquay-Varina has everything we love about a town. It’s smart, it’s growing and there’s an entrepreneurial spirit here. We can’t wait to get started.”
When will my neighborhood get fiber?
For many of us, a lot of this preamble is entirely irrelevant. The only question is “when can I get it.”
Looking down the road, at Holly Springs, construction started in June of 2016 and is nearing completion now. There’s no reason to believe things will be slower in Fuquay-Varina. If anything, we’d expect things to be faster.
Ting regularly shares “construction updates,” detailing construction progress in individual neighborhoods and across the town as a whole.
Ting tells us they expect to have the first customer connected before the end of the year with the construction pace accelerating through 2019.
Pricing
Ting has two service offerings. First, symmetrical gigabit fiber, up to 1,000 Mbps upload and download speeds, suitable for families that do a lot online for $89 per month. They also offer an entry-level service for $19 per month: 5/5 offers 5 Mbps upload and 5 Mbps download, more suited to small families who are more interested in email and simple browsing than in online gaming or streaming video.
The Ting Internet Box has the fastest Wi-Fi standard built in (802.11AC) and can be purchased or rented.
Ting tells us there’s a TV service in the wings too and that they’ll have more to share on that subject before the first customer is lit here in Fuquay-Varina.
