Traditional land-line telephone service is provided in Creston by Verizon. Their lines pass underground by every lot in Creston except those on the lower section of Kestrel (lines will be installed if/when an owner there orders service). Our distance from Verizon’s Central Office is such that DSL (Digital Subscriber Loop) service is not available here. Experience has been that Verizon’s telephone service in Creston is reliable, even in the worst weather and during power outages.

We are fortunate that Charter Communications’ cable is also available in Creston, and Charter offers telephone service as well as conventional TV and Internet services (more detail on the latter can be found below). Charter’s cable passes underground by every lot in Creston, including Kestrel. The service is very reliable except during periods of extended power outage on the mountain (which are very rare); if the mountain loses power for longer than 3 or 4 hours (Charter’s estimate), all of Charter’s services would be lost as well because there is a fiber-to-cable converter on the mountain that relies on the same commercial power as everything else in Creston. It is equipped with battery backup, but the batteries have limited capacity. Owners electing to use Charter’s phone service rather than Verizon’s should assure that they are assigned a phone number that is appropriate for 911 calls from the mountain (668 exchange). The fact that our street addresses are in Black Mountain (Buncombe County) but the mountain is, in fact, in McDowell County has caused confusion in the past. If you are erroneously assigned a Buncombe County number, 911 calls could end up in the wrong dispatch center.

Telephone Service

Cable TV

As with its telephone service, Charter Communications’ cable television service is available in Creston. Most of the current subscribers in Creston to Charter’s television products are satisfied with the service, with only the power outage issue as an exception to that assessment. In addition to Charter, satellite TV services (Direct TV and Dish Network) are, of course, available.

Internet Service

Charter Communications offers broadband Internet service in Creston via the same cable that provides television services. Because Verizon DSL service is not available in Creston, the only other means to access the Internet are cellular data services (see cellular notes, next) and archaic (and painfully slow) dial up via modem. Note that if you are visiting Creston prior to building your home, free wireless Internet access is available in the Community Center; see the description of CC services in the Resources section of this site.

Cellular Service

Currently, the only reliable cellular service available on the mountain is Verizon Wireless. They have a tower on the ridge immediately to the South of Creston’s main entrance and another tower on Wildcat Mountain to the East; these provide good service throughout Creston. We understand that at least one other carrier - U.S. Cellular - roams on Verizon’s network, so if you are a customer of the latter, your mobile phone should work fine here as well. Subscribers to AT&T, T-Mobile and most other carriers will find service very spotty or non-existent (heavily dependent on wind, temperature, atmospheric pressure, the current political climate, the size of the national debt and a variety of other functions yet to be clearly identified). Note that at least one carrier - T-Mobile - offers a service (modest additional fee) that allows certain of their phones to also operate via standard Wi-Fi data networks. So, for example, if you have an in-home Wi-Fi network connected to your Charter Internet service, you can still make and receive cellular calls from a non-Verizon phone. This type of service works anywhere there is Wi-Fi access, e.g. the Creston Community Center, the Straightaway Cafe, etc.

Power

Commercial electric service in Creston is provided by Duke Energy. The service is reliable; the only outages in the last year that we can recall were two of approximately 6 hours duration each, both due to severe winter weather. At the same time, outages in Progress Energy’s service area, less than two miles away, lasted literally for days.

Photos by Brian Shaw