Construction Update September 2019
3:39PM September 10, 2019
Construction Updates by Zone
Overall Update: We have over 600 miles of distribution and backbone fiber constructed, and over 900 members currently taking service. The most exciting news is that we are now consistently connecting over 60 new members each week! Our target is to have over 5,000 members with service by the end of 2020. While this goal is ambitious, we continue to improve processes every day—and are now fully staffed with the right experts to push towards this extraordinary goal!
What can you do to help us meet this goal and provide the best high-speed internet as quickly as possible?
- Encourage others in your neighborhood to register as soon as possible. The process goes significantly quicker for everyone if we construct all the service drops in an area at the same time, vs. coming back to an area multiple times as members sign up later.
- Mark all private underground facilities that you have (such as septic fields/tanks, private electric and gas lines, dog fences, etc.) prior to the drop being installed to your home. Not only does this prevent damage to your private facilities, it speeds up the processes of the drop construction and avoids the contractor from potentially having to delay your installation.
- Once your drop is constructed and spliced, you will receive an email to schedule your in-home installation (after which you will have service). Please make every effort to schedule a time as soon as possible, as it makes the process much more efficient to perform all the installs in an area prior to leaving the neighborhood. We have added Saturday and after hour timeslots to help with your busy schedules!
Residential Phone Service: Coming Soon! We plan to launch residential phone service in October and will share updates on this website and Facebook when members can add phone to their high-speed internet. We are also in negotiations to establish a streaming service for local channels called View Local; we plan to make it available later this fall.
ZONES CURRENTLY IN CONSTRUCTION
Drop Zone 1: Fiber drops to the home are almost
complete in Drop Zone 1; if you signed up and haven’t heard from us, please
give us a call at 1.833.444.2504! If you
have not scheduled your in-home installation yet, please do so ASAP as we will
be leaving the zone shortly. Currently,
there are around 180 members being served, with a couple dozen additional
members in various stages of the process. As a reminder, once we move to another area,
re-mobilization fees may apply, and we can’t guarantee how long it will take
since crews will be working in other areas to install drops.
Cope 104: We are getting close to completing the drops in this Zone. Time is running out to register to ensure your installation is completely free of charge! Currently, there are around 200 members being served, with approximately 80 additional members in various stages of the process. As a reminder, once we move to another area re-mobilization fees may apply, and we can’t guarantee how long it will take since crews will be working in other areas to install drops.
Park Ave 101: Drop construction is approximately 70% complete, with around 215 members currently in service and over 115 members in various stages of construction. Since the last update, we have had a significant number of additional registrations, which has extended our expected drop construction timeline to the end of September. Time is running out to get your free installation in this zone! If you haven’t registered yet, please do so as soon as possible. Once our contractors leave a zone, a re-mobilization fee may apply.
Cope 102: Fiber drop construction is approximately 40% completed, with over 150 members in service and around 250 members in various stages of construction. We expect to be completed with this zone by the end of October for everyone that is currently registered. PLEASE register ASAP if you have not already to ensure you receive a free installation in timeliest manner!
Martinsville SE 101: Fiber drops construction is roughly 50% completed, with over 130 members in service and 150 members in various stages of construction. We expect to be completed with this zone by the end of October for everyone that is currently registered. PLEASE register ASAP if you have not already to ensure you receive a free installation in the timeliest manner!
Needmore 102, 103, 104: We are making significant progress constructing our fiber backbone all the way from Martinsville to the Needmore area. This section of backbone is required prior to providing service to the Needmore zones, and the good news is that we expect this construction to be completed by the end of September! The fiber distribution network within the three Needmore zones is nearly completed, and we are actively installing drops to the home in preparation for the completion of this section of backbone. This will allow us to very quickly start providing internet service since many of the drops will already be installed. If your drop has been installed prior to the backbone being completed, when our system is ready you will receive an email from us to schedule your in-home install (forecasted early October). If you have not yet registered, PLEASE do so ASAP. The scheduling and construction process is significantly accelerated if members register before contractors leave the area.
Bean Blossom 101: This zone covers a very large and rural area. The fiber distribution network construction is expected to start shortly. Fiber drops to the home are expected to start in December 2019. We expect to be completed with this zone by mid-2020.
Bean Blossom 102: The distribution network construction has started in this zone. Due to the size of this zone, we are breaking the area into smaller phases to provide service as soon as possible. For the first phase, we hope to begin installing drops to the home in November, with the goal of providing everyone currently registered with service by April of 2020.
Brooklyn 102, 104, 105: Due to the combined interest in the Brooklyn zones, we were able to bring on an additional contractor to start construction. We hope to begin installing drops to homes by the end of October, with a goal of providing everyone currently registered with service by early 2020 (weather depending). PLEASE register ASAP if you have not already. The scheduling and construction process is significantly accelerated if members are registered prior to the drop contractors beginning!
Park Ave 104: The distribution fiber network construction is complete. Fiber drops to the home and in-home installations are starting. We expect to be completed with this zone by the end of December for everyone that is currently registered. PLEASE register ASAP if you have not already. The scheduling and construction process is significantly accelerated if members are registered prior to the drop contractors starting in a zone.
Cope 101: Construction of the distribution network is nearly complete. We anticipate starting to install drops to the home in early October, with a goal of providing service to all currently registered members by the end of 2019 (weather depending). PLEASE register ASAP if you have not already. The scheduling and construction process is significantly accelerated if members are registered prior to the drop contractors starting in a zone.
Backbone: We continue to construct backbone fiber throughout our system ahead of the distribution fiber. The backbone is used to interconnect our substations enabling smart grid technology to improve the safety and reliability of our electric distribution system. In addition, it provides the fiber connectivity from our headend to your home. Construction is currently focusing on building backbone along the southern and northern portions of our system to create “rings.” These rings provide redundant paths from the substations back to our headend. This means that if one path, for some reason, gets cut, the system will automatically redirect traffic to the backup path and prevent a service outage to our electric distribution devices as well as your home.
ALL OTHER ZONES: Please click here for the status of your zone.