MILL SPRING – A Mill Spring resident has posted a petition on change.org to bring the Charter Internet service provider to his area and eastern Polk County.

The petition, which was posted two weeks ago according to change.org, outlines the complaints of Windstream customers in the county and needs 77 more signatures to reach 100. Jarvis Garrett is listed on the website as the individual who started the petition.

“Mill Spring has only one source of Internet and phone service and that’s Windstream,” the petition states on the website. “We, the citizens of Polk County, petition the ISP (Internet Service Provider) of Charter Communications for service in our area. In the past several years, we have only had service offered from one provider. That provider has given us unreliable and substandard service with both phone and Internet service.”

According to Garrett, it was Charter who told him that if he were able to get 100 signatures on the petition they would look into extending their lines to eastern Polk County. The petition currently has 139 signatures on the website, and visitors to the change.org website can sign the petition by searching the keywords “mill spring charter” and clicking the first search result.

Garrett’s experience with Windstream

According to Garrett, his area can get at best up to six megabytes per second in Mill Spring. He said his girlfriend has been trying to move into a house down the road from him and Windstream promised her 12 megabytes per second. Charter’s Spectrum service promises users up to 60 megabytes per second for comparison.

“About two or three years ago, I started doing more work with the Internet along with gaming and Netflix streaming,” Garrett said. “Technology is only growing, and I think it’s taking more from us since we’re on the lower end in terms of a connection. It seems that when more people are on Windstream in our area, my signal goes down.”

Scott Morris, a media representative based in Arkansas for Windstream, explained how broadband service works for their customers, adding individuals living in rural areas typically do not receive the best coverage due to their distance from the nearest “node,” which Morris described as being collection points for broadband delivery to customers.

“Distance is a factor in the delivery of broadband in this fashion,” Morris said. “If you drew a circle and said that the circle represents the Columbus exchange, and then drew a square in the circle to represent the central office where telephone switching occurs and the major hardware is, from that location there are lines that go out to these network nodes.”

Garrett added that his neighbors would affect his Internet speed if they, too, were streaming videos online. While Windstream has promised Garrett six megabytes, the line he is using to get Internet service only allows at most three megabytes to come through.

“This was about three or four years ago, but the technician explained to me the line is like a rubber band and the further you stretch it and the more noise there is, the more instability there is and I’ll drop down to three megs,” Garrett explained. “The three megs works fine, but it’s not suitable especially when it comes to technology in the next several years.”

Garrett said he had been listening to people in the Mill Spring, Pea Ridge and outer Columbus areas who have said they could not get Charter and instead had to go to satellite Internet providers like HughesNet, or to Windstream.

“Windstream around here has all the local cable, and I’ve talked to a few technicians who work for Charter about it and they’ve said Windstream kind of has a monopoly on this area,” Garrett explained. “I don’t think Charter knows the amount of people they can reach without expanding.”

Residents and business owners voice their concerns

Elizabeth Rowlette is a resident of Green Creek and said she does not understand why there is only one choice in her area of Polk County, adding that Windstream should give another company a chance to compete for business in the area.

“I know it can’t be only me. Why do we only have one choice?” Rowlette said. “Why are we paying top dollar for such substandard Internet? It is so slow and it is unreal. If Windstream doesn’t want to spend money to upgrade service, give some other company a chance to compete for business. Pay us our money back for service they have not delivered.”

According to Tryon resident Nigel Pyatt, the main issue with Windstream’s broadband service lies with the copper lines used to deliver service.

“One of the main issues is that their wiring is antiquated,” Pyatt said. “There are too many customers receiving Internet from their copper-fed lines, which in turn creates a build-up of traffic meaning slower Internet speeds than advertised. This information is from a Windstream technician I spoke with via the phone when I was having issues monthly where the Internet would either come to a complete halt or be extremely slow at 0.5 megabytes per second when I was paying for three megabytes per second.”

Margaret Swearingen said when Windstream came to her house to install Internet, Windstream declined to give her service due to there being no more lines to connect to on her road.

“They said that they didn’t have any more lines on our road to connect to, that our road had the maximum number of people with Windstream Internet,” Swearingen said. “I didn’t even know that was a thing. Slightly a big deal with a fiancé who works from home and now has to commute to Charlotte every day because of the lack of Internet. And we’ve been told that Windstream is our only option for Internet in that particular corner of Landrum.”

Contract Manager Beth Umlauf with Landmark Inspection Services, LLC at the Ag Center in Mill Spring, said the issue extends beyond Internet service, citing issues she and her business has had with Windstream and installing telephone lines.

“From a business perspective, they are a nightmare,” Umlauf said. “We have an office at the Polk County Ag Center. In July of 2015, we requested to add three additional phone lines. We got one and were told they would have to contact engineering to add more lines coming into the building. It has been over a year and we are still waiting to be able to add the two additional lines.”

Local and state officials on Windstream complaints

A phone call was placed to the office of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-10) to ask if any of his district’s constituents had filed any complaints about Windstream. Press Secretary Jeff Butler with McHenry’s office responded and said there have been no complaints filed to their constituent service office.

Calls were also made to the office of Rep. Chris Whitmire (R-113), who serves Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties in the North Carolina General Assembly. Whitmire was not available for comment on the issue.

Polk County Manager Marche Pittman weighed on the Windstream complaints, saying he has heard several from county residents, especially more so in the last six weeks.

“The county has no regulatory authority at all over telephone companies so I refer them all to the Utilities Commission,” Pittman explained, clarifying the Utilities Commission as a state department. “I have gotten several complaints, and I think it’s in the past six weeks from people and I don’t know if it’s people that are starting to talk amongst themselves or what. You hear some over time, but the past six weeks it seems like it has been more than normal.”

Polk County Economic Development Director Robert Williamson echoed Pittman’s opinion, saying the county cannot control which providers come into the area.

“While I have heard some complaints about DSL services from residents, I cannot say that these are new complaints,” Williamson said. “It seems as if the same complaints come and go over the years. With the extensive advertising by Charter Spectrum, I’m sure callers are finding out that the Spectrum service is not available in their areas, prompting the ‘why not’ questions.”

As for businesses, Williamson said some businesses will connect to Pangaea Internet, a primarily commercial customer Internet service provider with hotspots in downtown areas such as Tryon. Others who can will connect to Charter Spectrum in their areas.

“Other than casual business’ comments about what service they use, I’ve heard no complaints from businesses,” Williamson said. “Given that, I cannot comment on one service provider over the other and encourage those who are experiencing problems to deal with their providers to resolve the issues.”

Windstream and Charter Communications weigh in

Windstream’s Scott Morris explained Windstream has invested capital into upgrading the speed of the network in Tryon over the last few years.

“Windstream customers in Tryon can bring in speeds of up to 50 megabytes per second,” Morris explained. “Over the last two or three years, we have invested our equipment there in Tryon to make these speeds available and we’ll continue to upgrade those network speeds as we go along, but those were the major projects that have been done in the recent past.”

Morris continued to say through copper and fiber optic lines, individuals who live near a certain network node will get the fastest speed on their network. Those who live farther away from a network node would see a drop in speed, according to Morris.

Garrett lives 14,000 feet, or approximately 2 ½ miles, from the nearest Windstream network node, according to Morris, and he explained Garrett has a copper line running to his residence as opposed to a newer fiber optic line. Morris said there are a few issues present in bringing a node closer to Garrett and the road he lives on, which Morris said only has two other customers.

“If there are just two other Windstream customers on that road, it makes it cost prohibitive to place a new node closer to him,” Morris explained. ‘There are not enough customers to make that a rational business decision to build another node because we could never recoup our investment since these are expensive pieces of equipment with additional fiber involved and the electronics associated with it. It would be a very expensive proposition, and so there is no current plan to move a node closer to him.”

Charter Regional Director of Communications Patti Michel based out of Asheville, N.C. responded to the petition saying customers are welcome to call 1-888-GET-CHARTER for a service feasibility assessment.

“Charter is always seeking to grow its business and we consider a multitude of projects on a regular basis,” Michel said. “Generally speaking, customers that do not currently have service may contact Charter at 1-888-GET-CHARTER so a feasibility assessment can be scheduled and conducted. Once the assessment is completed, we estimate the cost of extending our network and move forward if it’s economically viable.”