By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
The Glasgow Electric Plant Board is set to begin installation of its new fiber optic Internet cables in houses along Westwood Street, located off Cleveland Avenue, on Friday, Sept. 1.
According to Aaron Russell, communications director for EPB, they will be installing the new cables in roughly 20 homes in that neighborhood with the help of Ervin Cable Construction LLC, the contractors out of Sturgis, Ky., the Glasgow EPB hired to install this Fiber Optic Internet. Russell also said EPB crews would be “shadowing” the Ervin crews during installation.
Russell said there are still a few homes that they have not been able to reach but have been given the go ahead from the other residents to begin installing in their homes. He said EPB and Ervin crews began installing drops — the hookups and actual cables that go into individual homes — last week and are finally, after material and equipment delays, able to begin installing the cables.
“It is a very exciting step to be in,” Russell said.
The new fiber optic Internet cables have two big advantages over the currently used hybrid fiber coaxial cables, Russell said, the first being speed. Currently, the EPB has three Internet packages, each with its own download and upload speeds. There is the essential package with 25 megabits per-second downloads and 5 mbps uploads, the classic with 50 mbps downloads and 10 mbps uploads and the premium package with 100 mbps and 20 mbps.
Russell said with this new fiber optics those speeds will be increased, at no charge to the customer, to 100 mbps, 300 mbps and 500 mbps respectively in both download and upload speeds. He also said the EPB would put out a new Internet package for $85 that would provide a gig in download and upload speeds.
“No one will see a price increase currently if they’re an internet customer of ours,” Russell said. “No one is going to see a forced increase.”
The second advantage over coaxial cables is reliability. Russell said HFC cables are made out of copper — as opposed to fiber optic cables that are composed of small pieces of glass — that are prone to interference, or noise as Russell called it. He said noise can cause issues with whole neighborhoods from slower speed even to outright power outages.
“It’s a complicated process, it’s virtually a wild goose chase really, to find noise,” Russell said. “What’s great with fiber, because of [how it’s transmitted] you don’t have the interference issue potentially, and it’s so much easier to troubleshoot.”
This Westwood Street installation is the beginning of the EPB’s four phase initiative to provide fiber optic Internet to all of Glasgow. The first phase, Russell said, was announced last September at the board meeting when they “earmarked” $2.5 million in their general fund for materials, equipment and installation of phase one, which will be comprised of the Southwestern part of town. The other three stages, Russell said, will go counterclockwise around the city.
Phase one of the GEPB’s four phase fiber optic project (denoted by the blue shading). Photo courtesy of the EPB website.
Russell said the supply chain issues that resulted in material and equipment delays have somewhat pushed back the phase one timeframe. According to Russell they had hoped to have the first phase finished by September, but have since pushed it back to the end of this year. However, despite this, he said, now that the necessary material is “sitting in their warehouses” progress of the actual installation is proceeding fairly quickly. He was not sure as to the exact end date for all four phases.
“Our original timeline was four phases four years, but I think we’re wanting to speed that up to meet customers’ needs a lot quicker,” Russell said.
Russell said he is unsure of the total cost of all four phases but phase one, with its $ 2.5 million, is the smallest phase the EPB has planned in this fiber Internet project and thus will go to the board again to approve further funds for future phases. He said phase two has been designed already but they are being “very targeted” with their crews finishing up phase one completely before moving forward.
Russell said this is the biggest broadband upgrade the EPB has done since its creation in 1962.
“We’re very excited,” Russell said. “This has been something we have been looking forward to. To finally be getting to the point of having our first customers hooked up…we’re very excited and we hope we can continue to provide a service that is superior to our customers.”
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