Phase One Update
9:39AM January 10, 2022
Season’s Greetings! It’s hard to believe we are in the final week of 2022. We wanted to take a minute to provide an update on the progress of the broadband buildout. This update is long overdue, and we apologize that we have not communicated more frequently.
We have made significant progress since we kicked off construction in September. However, we are behind schedule. We ran into issues with availability of contractors and resources that put our project behind schedule in the first few weeks. The ability to conduct locates for other utility services has created bottlenecks for our crews and we are now on our third project manager with our main contractor. Most recently getting upstream circuit access has blocked efforts to connect our system. While we have made up lost time in some areas, we have not been able to fully get back on schedule.
One of the things that makes cooperatives great is their resiliency and while we are disappointed with the status, we are continuing to move forward. This is a significant construction for our area with nearly 175 miles of fiber connecting 1500 homes. In a perfect world, the system could be built in a linear fashion. Because we have a mixture of aerial and underground fiber, a lot of our effort is geared towards putting the puzzle together. So far, we have completed:
Installation of approximately 90% of the underground conduit
Installation of several miles of fiber being placed in the conduit
Construction of approximately 45% of the aerial fiber
Drop crews were able to get some fiber run from the main fiber to the home
The Beldenville substation hut is completed and is ready once fiber is connected
Circuit access has been contracted with two providers and we are finishing the connection with one of these providers in the next couple of weeks
If you have not received a phone call about your fiber drop to the home, we will continue to call over the next couple of months. In some areas, we hope to be able to do temporary drops over the winter. We will contact you if this is an option once our service is up and running.
We will continue to work over the next several months to complete Phase One. It’s not how we planned it and we are certainly aware that many of you are waiting to be connected. We are confident that once services are turned up, you will be excited about the service and bringing fiber to our members will be a monumental achievement. Our team is dedicated, focused, and working with a sense of urgency as we look to complete this project. At the same time, we have begun to work on Phase Two so that we can expect an earlier construction start.
Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through this endeavor and strive to help our members Live Better ®.