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Get in line: Ting’s network expansion slower than expected

Ting employees have been installing lightning-fast internet service in Charlottesville since June 2015, but about half of the city is still awaiting service. File photo

When the folks at a “lightning-fast” fiber gigabit internet company decided to roll out their service in Charlottesville, they knew it would be popular—but now it’s in such high demand that there are hundreds of city residents waiting for access to its network.

Ting has been in town for more than three years, and is currently accessible to more than half of Charlottesville, says Elliot Noss, the company’s Toronto-based CEO. And while it has a footprint in about 80 percent of the local area, Noss says a waitlist is “certainly north of 1,000” people.

And here’s why: When Ting acquired a majority stake in Blue Ridge InternetWorks in 2014, Noss says it bought a preexisting network that wasn’t built to service the whole city.

“There’s no criticism in that,” he says. “We all knew what we were signing up for.”

While BRI’s existing backbone has plenty of fiber capacity, he says it lacks electronic capacity. In other words, says Noss, “Some portions of the network need and needed to be improved. We probably thought we had a little more coverage than we did.”

Though they may have had a slower start than they anticipated, the folks at Ting are still stringing internet cables up on poles and running fiber-optic cables to subscriber’s homes in town. They expect to be able to service 70 percent of the city by the end of the year, with an additional 15 percent by the end of 2019.

“More people have access every week,” promises Noss, who adds that he reads Charlottesville’s subreddit on discussion website Reddit, and he’ll often see someone say they’re moving to town and looking for recommendations for the best internet service provider. He says city residents are quick to suggest Ting, but add that it likely won’t be available.

“That breaks our heart,” says Noss. “We are certainly doing the work as fast as we can.”

For folks eager to try the gigabit service that starts at $89 per month, Noss suggests paying the refundable $9 to join the waitlist. “It’s like a vote for where we build next,” he says.

Redfields resident Michael Smith says he waited 13 months for Ting.

“Initial expectation from conversations with Ting personnel was the August/September of 2017 timeframe, but obviously that didn’t happen,” he says, adding that he was finally provided a “temporary connection” to the service in mid-February, before his permanent connection was completed two months later.

For Smith, a self-employed computer consultant who primarily works from home (and who was also a former BRI employee from 2002 to 2007), switching to Ting from Comcast was about speed and reliability.

“Ting is a lot faster for less money,” he says. And though he still has CenturyLink as a backup, “given the reliability of Ting so far,” he plans to cancel the second service this fall.

Smith says Ting is worth the wait: “I’m happy with the switch to Ting. I wish it hadn’t taken so long.”

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In brief: Downtown CODE, white supremacists settle, subsidized Ting and more

What’s the CODE?

A new rendering and name have been given to local angel investor Jaffray Woodriff’s tech incubator scheduled to take out the Main Street Arena sometime this summer. The Center of Developing Entrepreneurs—or, aptly named CODE—will be situated at the west entrance of the Downtown Mall and will house between 15 and 25 businesses.

Woodriff aims to “bring together innovators in a multi-tenant building, stimulating economic activity and increasing employment,” according to a press release.

The ice park closes March 31, and construction on the new 170,000-square-foot building in its place is expected to be finished by 2020. It’ll feature an open-air, pedestrian walkway so Downtown Mallers can still access Water Street without obstruction. And the mall entryway to the entrepreneurial hot spot’s main lobby will lead to several new retail spaces.

The secondary Water Street entrance will serve as a co-work area and a 200-seat auditorium for tenants and community events.

And don’t forget the parking—CODE will include bicycle storage, electric vehicle charging stations and one level of underground parking that will easily be convertible to office space “in anticipation of evolving transportation trends.”

“I’d like to have the confidence and the trust that when my phone rings it’s not going to be a robocaller and it’s not going to be a political ad and it’s not going to be a spoofed phone number.”—Nest Realty agent Jim Duncan to “CBS This Morning,” in a segment about whether the government should interfere with increased robocalls

Adios, LOSers

The neo-Confederate League of the South has agreed not to return to Charlottesville should there be another Unite the Right rally. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the league and its officers, who are named in a suit brought by a Georgetown Law institute, admit no wrongdoing. Nearly two dozen defendants were named in the suit, and Jason Kessler tweeted that he won’t settle because he’d have to agree to not countersue.

A Ting thing

Most people in town are privy to the “crazy fast fiber internet” service, but not everyone can afford the $89 a month price tag. City Councilor Wes Bellamy is proposing a $150,400 city subsidy that would allow public-housing residents to pay only $10 a month for the service. Comcast has an affordable internet program at the same price.

Dewberry grows

The Board of Architectural Review okayed an extra floor and more mass last week for the Downtown Mall’s unwanted landmark, the skeletal structure that’s blighted the landscape since 2009. Now known as the Dewberry Charlottesville, the proposed hotel may add an 11th floor and 17 more rooms.

Manic motorists

Virginia State Police responded to 382 traffic crashes and assisted with 242 disabled or struck vehicles during the March 21 snowstorm, further proving that Virginians aren’t known for their ability to drive well in inclement weather.

False advertising

The 425 highway signs in the state that say, “Speed limit enforced by aircraft,” are all lying, according to the Bristol Herald Courier, which reports that Virginia State Police haven’t aerially enforced the speed limit for more than five years.

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‘Crazy fast’ like Shanghai and Stockholm

Local musician Peyton Tochterman stars in a short music video for Ting, which was shot on the Downtown Mall. Staff photo

The filming for a new Ting commercial has begun on the Downtown Mall and local musician Peyton Tochterman is the star, singing about how Charlottesville will be as connected as Shanghai.

The “crazy fast” Internet company, which launched its first ever network in Charlottesville in June, has already given half the city access to its fiber optic cable service and expanded to a few other U.S. cities. With big plans to continue advertising, marketing director Trish Mclean says production companies are recording TV and radio spots in each city.

Local company Silverthorn Films, along with Ting-hired agency Real Life Creative, began filming a music video starring Tochterman and some of Charlottesville’s favorite hotspots February 16 and are wrapping it up at the Southern today.

Some of the places that will appear in the video include the Mudhouse, Chaps Ice Cream, Ike’s Underground Vintage Clothing and Strange Cargo, Bittersweet and the ice skating rink.

It’s a “cute, humble concept,” says Michael Goldstein, Ting’s vice president of sales and marketing. “A great town deserves great Internet.”

And while Tochterman was busy recording his 30-second, Charlottesville-specific track, the crew’s makeup artist Mariah Johnson bragged about the service off screen.

“I actually didn’t know before I showed up that [the music video] was for Ting,” she says. “I love Ting!”

The commercial and radio segment will begin airing in March. Get a sneak peek here.

 

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Lightning fast: Ting’s grand plans to expand

Ting employees have been installing lightning-fast internet service in Charlottesville since June 2015, but about half of the city is still awaiting service. File photo

Just five months after Ting launched its high-speed Internet network in Charlottesville, the company has given almost half the city access to the gigabit.

Ting describes the gigabit as “lightning fast” (gigabit refers to a speed of one gigabit per second, and one gigabit equals 1,000 megabits), and its network requires not just stringing cables up on poles, but also running a fiber-optic cable to a subscriber’s house.

“We’re very pleased with the subscribers that we’ve received so far based on our coverage,” says Baylor Fooks, a general manager at Ting and cofounder of Blue Ridge InternetWorks—the company that took the initiative to expand a fiber optic cable network in Charlottesville. (He declined to release the total number of subscribers.) Thus far, Ting has targeted downtown and several neighborhoods including Belmont, Martha Jefferson, Jefferson Park Avenue and Rugby Road, according to Fooks. And the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, he says.

Grit Cafe, a food and coffee shop with several locations including one on the Downtown Mall, has used Ting for about two months and advertises it on the sandwich board outside its door.

“Internet access is obviously a huge part of our offering,” says owner Brad Uhl, adding that some customers use the cafe as a secondary office location. Grit employee Anthony Fitzgerald says that while he’s on the job, customers often praise the service and say it’s faster than theirs at home.

With plans to expand the Internet service to more homes in the city by the beginning of 2016 and into Albemarle County shortly thereafter, Ting is also touting a new service.

Ting CEO Elliot Noss recently announced the company will offer cable streaming next year.

“Your Internet access is something you don’t want to think about,” Fooks says, “but your TV experience is quite the opposite.” According to Fooks, Ting’s cable streaming service will be an app format that allows users to select the content they want for their device, similar to Roku, Chromecast and Apple TV.

Though prices for cable streaming aren’t available yet, the gigabit Internet service is $89 per month (along with a $399 installation fee). And though that may seem expensive, Fooks says that just two years ago, the average price for gigabit service would have been between $5,000 and $10,000 per month. Ting supports straightforward pricing without bundling, and doesn’t apply early termination fees, he says.

For people who only use the Internet for basic tasks such as checking e-mail and social media accounts, Ting offers a five-megabit plan for less than $20 a month. Competitor CenturyLink, which has the largest local coverage area, has a three-megabit plan for the same price, but without the fiber optic cable. CenturyLink also offers a 25-megabit plan for $34.95, which the company says is quick enough to support downloading high-definition movies, streaming videos and playing games at high speeds.

CenturyLink user Mark Moss says because there are few Internet and cable options in Charlottesville, with the major players being his provider and Comcast, he was interested in Ting when it launched. His current Internet provider, he says, “does a pretty good job of basic streaming, but the upload is very slow.”

“‘Fast enough’ may work most of the time,” Fooks says, “but we are providing a service that will work with multiple video streams, voice, gaming and anything else you want to throw at it.” He calls it a “vastly superior” experience, and says Ting aims to keep its business model simple by only offering two plans.

Moss, who lives on an extension of Marshall Street where utilities are buried underground, is concerned about whether Ting would be an option at this location. According to Fooks, in this case, the company would also install its fiber optic cables underground. Where Internet is already available, Fooks says it can be installed almost immediately after sign-up in a process that takes about three hours. “When you start drilling holes in someone’s house, you have to take a lot of care,” he says.