CoMPAS enters new era with streaming and fiber-to-home expansion

As national cable and internet providers expand into Morganton and more viewers turn to streaming services to watch their favorite shows and movies, the City of Morganton is bringing CoMPAS into a new era with the rollout of television streaming and fiber-to-home services.

The city launched its new streaming service on June 1, allowing customers to choose between the service and traditional cable. Streaming is included in customers’ TV subscriptions and includes high-definition channels, 72-hour replay, the ability to restart programs already in progress, and Cloud DVR to record shows for later.

Customers can watch through the CoMPAS X-Stream app on compatible Android, Amazon, and Apple devices and exchange their traditional cable box for a streaming box. Roku is not currently supported because of the cost to offer the app on the platform, though Branch said the city may reconsider paying the fee in the future.

Launching a streaming service isn’t the only way the city is working to keep up with modernization in the telecommunications industry. For three years, the city has been piloting fiber-to-home service. So far, CoMPAS Director Greg Branch said the city has converted six of its 42 service nodes, each serving 250 customers. Now, the city has more than 50 fiber-to-home customers.

The upgraded system allows CoMPAS crews to connect a home to fiber in about three hours after a customer makes a request, Branch said. While the city’s existing network already has a fiber backbone, most homes are still connected through coaxial cable.

The goal is to have a city-wide fiber-to-home rollout completed by the end of the decade. Several streets in the Carbon City Road, West Union Street, Lenoir Street, and Rockyford Street areas have access to the service. Several areas are in progress, including streets in the area between Sanford Drive and Lenoir Road.

NAVIGATING A CHANGING INDUSTRY

The upgrades come as CoMPAS faces growing competition from larger providers like Spectrum and AT&T, which have expanded into Morganton. Viewer habits also continue to shift away from traditional cable and toward streaming platforms.

“People were going to streaming services, but I think they realized that it ain’t all that it’s cracked up to be once they go there because you have to have every streaming service in the world to watch everything you want to watch,” Branch said.

He added that while people have had frustrations about not being able to get certain channels, cable providers also have little control over channel lineups and programming costs because decisions are largely dictated by television programmers.

“It’s a real puzzle to put it all together,” City Manager Sally Sandy said.

“In essence, what’s happened to cable TV has happened from the programmers,” Branch said. “From our standpoint, I feel like we try every way in the world to keep prices as low as possible, and no matter how hard you try, it’s not seen in that light.”

Despite those challenges, Sandy said city leaders have continued investing in CoMPAS because they believe local control over telecommunications services in a small community is important for Morganton’s future economic development.

LEGISLATIVE HURDLES

While private providers have received federal funding to expand broadband service, Sandy said CoMPAS has not been eligible for those opportunities that would have helped speed up the fiber-to-home rollout.

“We have attempted through a consultant, through a lobbyist, through direct appeals to Hugh Blackwell multiple times to see why we could not access those dollars,” Sandy said. “So, the people in Morganton, the taxpayers are being punished, and AT&T and Spectrum and Foothills Broadband are being given that money.”

The North Carolina General Assembly enacted a law in the early-to-mid 2000s that prevents municipal providers from expanding service beyond city limits, Sandy noted, adding that at one point, the Town of Valdese was interested in accessing the city’s fiber.

“Since that time, we have no way to grow,” Sandy said.

HOW COMPAS BEGAN

The origin of CoMPAS dates back to the early 1990s, when Morganton voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum allowing the city to enter the cable television business following the $35 million Madison Cablevision, Inc. v. City of Morganton lawsuit. The case defined legal authority for North Carolina municipalities to own communications infrastructure.

When Sandy joined the city as finance director in 1993, the system was already under construction.

“That vote was the most overwhelming positive vote of any vote of the people that’s ever happened in the city of Morganton, and it was a huge majority vote for the city to take over,” Sandy said.

She added that the city billed customers for the first time in January 1993, becoming the first municipality in the state to offer cable television service. Within the first six months, Sandy said city staff had to go back to the Local Government Commission and First Citizens Bank, who financed the original system, twice to borrow additional dollars because the number of subscriptions was much greater than predicted and the city had to build an additional plant.

The service operates as a utility, meaning that it’s a business enterprise that has to support itself financially.

“That also means that if and when we should decide that we are going to sell that business, that would require a vote of the people,” Sandy said, adding that the City Council considered selling the business once before, but decided against it.