“The communities that have this connectivity [high-speed fiber optic cable] in the future are going to prosper,” Daniel Limerick, president and CEO of RST Fiber Optics Networks, told 75 people Monday night in the Renaissance Centre.
“Wake Forest is going to be our show place,” Limerick said. “I can’t wait until we get this completed.”
When it is complete, Limerick said, people who experience the high-speed connection at home in town and then go to Raleigh to work will say, I’ve got to work out of my home. “The value of your home [with the fiber connection] will go up $5,000 to $7,000.”
Limerick said Wake Forest had been chosen as the model city for RST’s fiber cable installation because of the interest shown by the community, as evidenced by the task force the town set up, by the number of responses to the survey on the town’s website and the number of people who showed up for the first of three informational meetings. The other two will be held at 6 p.m. in the Renaissance Centre on two Thursdays, May 22 and May 29.
RST will offer an internet connection at either 50mbps for $59.95 per month or 100mbps for $99.95 per month and phone service for $34.95 per month. As for television service – “We’re working on it,” Limerick said. He added that “you have never seen a TV picture better than what you see with fiber.”
He said RST will also offer in-home cameras that homeowners can move or zoom in wirelessly. The cameras record to a cloud with a 30-day memory backup.
For businesses, the options begin with 50mbps service for $495 a month up to 1000mbps for $5,995 per month. For ultra-ultra high speed, there is a 10gbps service at $6,995. All service is for the same speed for upload and download.
RST is working with the Wireless Research Center of North Carolina, which is in Wake Forest, to explore and experiment with the possibilities of a gigabit connection.
People who want the fiber connection should first register at www.wakeforestfiber.com.
Then, “Construction will begin once you and 30 percent of your neighbors have committed to RST services through www.wakeforestfiber.com and completed the $250 installation fee transaction through www.rstfiber.com or www.wakeforestfiber.com using Amazon or Paypal,” the slide Limerick showed said. He said it was taken from Google’s plan for its high-speed installation.
The fiber will be in conduit along the right-of-way. For each customer, there will be a vault in front of the house that will be almost invisible. Using computer-generated mapping, RST will dig directionally 10 feet deep in the ground, avoiding other utilities and allowing for future plantings, and come up at the house to connect to a router RST will provide. All the equipment – the computers, the televisions (in the future), the telephones will be served wirelessly from that router.
There were a lot of questions.
Susan Winkler, who lives in Heritage, had asked about the way service would be provided and then wanted to know “Do we need to worry about security?” Limerick answered at length, explaining IP addresses – all the original IP numbers have been used – and the new addressing, IPV6, with trillions of numbers. “From a security standpoint, it makes it very difficult to hack into that.”
What if you live outside town? The system will be constructed first in the city core and work out from there, Limerick said. “It’s a real tough thing to be a Shelby-based company . . . to deal with a large competitor. I do believe once service begins and people see what you can do with it [the RST system] will expand much more quickly with the revenue coming in.”
Responding to a question by Ed Gary, Limerick said there would be a number of hot spots around town. “We are putting up a mesh of access points for wi-fi for overlapping coverage through Wake Forest.”
The meeting began with Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell introducing the members of the task force who were present: Commissioner Zachary Donahue, Chris Morgan, Dan Holt and Curtis Brothers.
Donahue spoke briefly about the town taking up the idea of high-speed internet throughout the town at the town board’s annual retreat and then setting up a task force with the goal “to do something big.”
Holt said he became interested in fiber optic cable for internet about two years ago when he saw a crew laying the cable for a new subdivision, Traditions. He could not get that service at his Wait Avenue home. He went to Wilson to investigate their fiber to the home service and even rented an office there to work with the system. “There was no buffering on Netflix, the downloads were instantaneous, we could do Skype, it was blazing fast.”
That led Holt to MCNC and Wake Forest resident Joe Fredossa, who is the MCNC president. “He helped build the broadband fiber structure in North Carolina.” From Fredossa Holt learned that RST had acquired some dark fiber – purchased a share in the MCNC network – and its goal was to get fiber to the home.
Holt sent Limerick “about 1,200 emails” and got him interested in Wake Forest.
Next Tuesday the town board will recognize May as “Wake Forest Fiber to the Forest Month.”
