Seeing the Light: touring Wilson’s municipal Internet system

I was invited today to tour the City of Wilson’s Greenlight municipal Internet system, so I took the day off and jumped at the chance. I’d helped win the latest battle against the anti-municipal broadband bill and the folks at the City of Wilson wanted to offer a tour to show their appreciation.

I arrived a little after 10 and met Brian Bowman, Public Affairs Manager with the city. He took me around the office and introduced me to other staffers (as a “famous blogger”…ha!) before giving me a ride out to the Greenlight offices in the city’s maintenance services building.

As we walked through the building, passing city department offices and cafeterias and such, there was little hint that there was an ISP here. Then we passed through a door at the end of the hall and I found myself standing in a well-furnished lobby of Greenlight. Couches surrounded a flat-screen TV, displaying the digital cable service that Greenlight provides. A receptionist worked at a nearby desk, and a technical support team was in an adjoining glass office. Everything had a new feel to it, which isn’t surprising as the service has been active for only about six months.

We met up with Michael Basham, Wilson’s IT Director, who’s in charge of Greenlight. Mike is an affable guy who sharpened his IT chops for Wake County before he came to Wilson. Mike is clearly proud of Greenlight, as he is largely designed it. Mike took me around the facility, showing me the tech support team, the head end, and even the trailer parked out back that is used for public demonstrations of the service.

As far as the head end goes, there was a lot of gear I hadn’t seen before mixed with much that I was familiar with. Occasionally Mike would use an acronym that furrowed my brow but he could always explain things to a layman like me. He helpfully laid out the path a cable channel takes from the nearby massive satellite dish to the customer’s set-top box, for instance.

The thing I was most impressed with was how organized the whole facility is. The cable management is top-notch and the gear is state of the art. I’ve been in a lot of datacenters in my IT career and this one ranks as being one of the best maintained. Mike obviously knows his stuff.

After our datacenter tour, I headed back to city hall to say hello to the city manager, Grant Goings. We talked a bit about the journey Wilson took to get where it is today and discussed the possibilities for the future. Goings, together with Wilson’s political leadership, was very forward-thinking and saw this investment in Wilson’s Internet infrastructure as the best way to counteract Wilson’s decline as a tobacco marketplace. Greenlight was never about profit, it was for the benefit of Wilson’s citizens. That’s why service is available to every Wilson citizen, not just where it’s convenient to provide it.

After today’s tour, I can agree that Wilson’s made a smart investment in its future. I forsee the day that Wilson’s beautiful downtown tobacco warehouses are filled with racks of servers. Or savvy, Internet-hungry technology companies. Wilson’s got the Greenlight for growth.