Blog Archive

Friday, December 10, 2010

Glasgow Residents on the Nice List

Our fiber optic connections to the world allow us to be in constant contact with Santa’s workshop, and we are happy to report that all EPB customers have been placed on the “nice” list! We thought you should know about this good fortune and what each of you will be getting for Christmas as a result of your niceness.

For those of you who have HD televisions, the good news is that our HD tier of programming is growing by six new channels. They are: Channel 554 - TBS-HD, Channel 555 - CNN-HD, Channel 556 - MSNBC-HD, Channel 557 - CNBC-HD, Channel 560 - Nickelodeon-HD, and Channel 564 - Comedy Central-HD. Along with the new HD channels, all of our nice Digital Tier customers will also be getting eight new DMX music channels.

Oprah Winfrey fans have something coming from St. Nick as well. Just after the first of the year our channel 104 will become OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).

Our internet customers are on the nice list as well and they will suddenly start seeing even faster internet service at no additional cost. For those customers using our present 2.5 mb service, it will very soon become 3 mb service. For those customers using our faster 5 mb service, they will soon be faster still at 6 mb. These upgrades are just the beginning as further upgrades and other faster speed products will become available a bit later in 2011. HO HO HO!

The most expensive gift that EPB customers have coming to them just after Christmas is Glasgow’s new electric power delivery point at East Glasgow Substation. This is not something you will notice everyday, but it will dramatically improve the reliability and sustainability of our electric power supply in Glasgow for the next several decades. This new $8 million investment will give all of us a redundant power supply in case of failure or damage to our old power delivery substation at Haywood.

Thanks to all EPB customers for being nice and getting recognized as such by the North Pole gang. From all of us at the EPB to all of you folks who we serve, we wish you the Merriest of Christmases and a New Year filled with joy.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Recommended by Local Elves

The elves in Glasgow’s technology toy land (Glasgow EPB) are busy year round, but at this time of year they are particularly involved in planning upgrades to our internet services. When we gaze into our crystal ball and try to guess what products many of our customers will be putting under their tree, we see a lot of on-line gaming and streaming video products heading toward Glasgow. Since we are virtually certain those items are coming to town, we have had our team busy testing them on our networks, and here is what we have learned.

First of all, we introduced a very large streaming video-over-internet application a few weeks ago when we brought ESPN 3 to our customers. Just last night, when UK played Boston University, we saw a stunning amount of streaming video traffic on our network as many of our customers watched the game via their internet connection on ESPN 3. When folks start using this service and adding video streaming products from Netflix.com and Hulu.com, it is going to require us to dramatically upgrade our network capacity - and we are in the process of doing just that.

Using these streaming video services and some of the new gaming software successfully at your home will also require that you think about upgrading your personal internet connection. Tests in our laboratory find that ESPN 3 and Netflix both work much better using our 5 MB internet service instead of the generic 2.5 MB service. At 5 MB the video does not have to do much buffering, rather, it plays continuously like you are watching a DVD. We have also found that the 5 MB connection is a necessity for viewing HD content over the internet.

The 5 MB connection is $36 per month compared to the $26 that most folks are paying for the 2.5 MB product, but that $10 per month more buys you a lot better performance for the Christmas presents you might be putting under the tree this year. If you are bringing home an Apple TV, one of the new Google TV devices, or any of the many new streaming video appliances, you will not be happy with them unless you also opt for the 5 MB internet service. So, before you open the presents and hook them up, give us a call at 651-8341 to order your higher speed internet service. We can upgrade your service remotely so you won’t have to worry about finding time to meet us at your house.

There is more to this recommendation too. Very soon (perhaps about the same time you open those Christmas gifts), we will be upgrading all of the speeds on our internet services to go even faster! We will also be adding more HD channels for your enjoyment. Christmas time is a big thing for the people of Glasgow who are served by Glasgow EPB. We have gifts coming your way that will bring you additional enjoyment throughout the year, and we aren’t even keeping a list and checking it twice!