Holly Springs is happy with Ting

Ting Internet, a Canadian company and a division of Tucows, announced in early February it would make Wake Forest its third Wake County town after Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina.

Plans are to hold a public meeting in April and begin connecting customers this summer. Potential customers are encouraged to pre-order service at www.ting.com/wakeforest with the $9 charge returned as a credit on their first bill. Residential service is $89 a month, and business service is $139.

The Gazette thought it would be a good idea to find out what our neighbors in Holly Springs think about Ting and its service.

The first call was to the town manager, Randy Harrington, but Town Clerk Linda McKinney answered the phone. After hearing our questions and promising Harrington would return our call, she said, “I love it.” Her home was one of first connected to Ting, and she made sure we knew she spoke as a private individual, not the town clerk.

But then we spoke with Mayor Richard (Dick) Sears, who may not have said he loves Ting but came close. “Anybody who attaches up to Ting will be happy,” he said. “I would give Ting an A, Spectrum a B and AT&T (which he has at home) a B minus. Ting leads the pack.

“They are more customer-oriented than any of their competitors,” Sears said. “They meet with everybody. That does not all happen with Spectrum.” He said AT&T “doesn’t always come” when they say and cited an instance when an AT&T employee was “over in my neighbor’s yard.

In addition to excellent customer service, Sears said, “They are a very good promoter of the town.” Holly Springs has a Ting Stadium and a Ting Park, given the names after the company paid for three years of naming rights. Sears suggested Wake Forest pursue possibilities of working with Ting in the same way and others.

Readers can find more information about Ting in the Gazette archive for Feb. 6, 2019 when the article announcing it had chosen Wake Forest was published.

As for other internet services in Wake Forest, information is scanty. The Gazette turned to Tom LaBarge, the town’s chief information officer, who said: “The private providers do not share their overall service offerings with us. Each subdivision may have different types of services available to them depending on the provider.

“For instance, I believe CL has fiber service in Traditions but I don’t know what speeds are available over the fiber. Spectrum may be in that neighborhood as well and offer services. Cable (copper) is different from fiber (glass strands), they both carry data from point A to B. Depending on the equipment used, fiber has the ability to move the data faster and farther in distance than cable.

“As far as the Town’s network goes, we will have extra dark fiber (strands that are not in use) available for lease. It would be up to the person\business leasing the fiber on how they would use it to fit their needs. The town would not be providing any actual data\internet services. No lease terms have been set at this point.”