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 Review by MattE 
UPDATED: 21 days ago
member for 5.1 years, 2135 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Jamestown,Guilford,NC
 $69 per month
 about 3 days
 "Super-fast, low latency, excellent peering"
 "A little pricy compared to FiOS"
 "Great value for the money compared to U-Verse or Road Runner"
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I live in a new community that fortunately was wired for North State Communications Lightstar Fiber Optic service. (»www.northstate.net/lightstar/) Much like Verizon's FiOS service, it's based upon BPON (Broadband Passive Optical Network) technology.
They offer several speed tiers, all the way up to a 30Mbps/5Mbps tier ... although once you get above the 6Mbps/1Mbps tier, the pricing is extremely high. The latency is wonderful, due to direct peering agreements with Level 3, Verizon (alter.net), and Global Crossing (glbx.net). They installed a APC battery backup on my house, and there appears to be a larger one for each section of my neighborhood. (See pics here: »[Fiber Pics] North State Communications Lightstar Pics)
I've dealt with AT&T (former Bellsouth) DSL and Time Warner Cable Road Runner and while Road Runner was an extremely stable connection, for $5 less a month, I get 6Mbps/1Mbps vs 5Mbps/384Kbps ... AT&T DSL isn't even remotely close in competition; especially on price.
The only issue I've had so far, was an intermittent connectivity issue on a Sunday evening ... since North State is a local Telco, the issue wasn't resolved until Monday morning so I had to use my Verizon EVDO service for the remainder of the evening. The flip side of that, is when you call, there is only one number to call and a live person answers within seconds. The rep can assist you with whatever you need. Very refreshing in a world of voice prompts and maddening phone menus.
Overall, I'm extremely happy and hope they expand the service and start offering IPTV so I can cut my ties to Time Warner altogether.
Update: I decided to treat myself to an upgrade back to the 15Mbps/2Mbps package. Speeds are in the 13Mbps/1.6Mbps range after protocol overhead.
Update: North State has lowered the price from $89/month to $74.95! In a world where the Time Warner's and AT&T's are constantly RAISING rates, my ILEC just lowered it $15/month!
Update: Price lowered again, now only $69.95/month! That's a $20 price decrease since I first ordered the service!
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Review by hyperion
UPDATED: 312 days ago
member for 331 days, 0 visits, last login: 331 days ago
High Point,Guilford,NC
Contract price not specified.
"Screaming Speeds"
"You might need to contact omeone at Northstate to tweek the box so you can above default upload speed"
"Excellent speed for the money"
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The package I ordered was the 15MB down for 90.00 per month. The upload speeds are 1MB by default. You can contact someone in the networking services department to crank up you upload to 4MB. You might talk to a half dozen people before you get the right one to make the changes. This technology is Ethernet based so there is no equipment. The bad experiences of the company is the ability to talk to the right person to fix a problem. Other then that NorthState in my book is top notch.
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North State Communications
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