At least 300 homes in Mooers, Mooers Forks and Altona will be offered higher broadband speeds within the next three years, according to the provider spearheading the efforts.
The Champlain Telephone Company, which received $1.3 million from the latest round of state broadband grants in April, are now rolling out their plans to provide better service.
Internet speed in specific areas of Mooers, Mooers Forks and Altona has been limited to around 6 to 10 megabytes per second due to being farther away from the provider located on Route 9 in Champlain, said Marketing Manager Vicki Marking.
“Internet speeds in some pocketed areas of Mooers, Mooers Forks and Altona have been slower than is ideal due to the distance some customers are from our service hubs,” said Marking. “The broadband grant will allow us to upgrade the infrastructure to fiber internet providing greater speeds with a technology that is not distance dependent.”
As part of this effort, subscribers within those areas will be offered a minimum download speed of 25 mbps, which is mandated as part of the state agreement, and 4 mbps upload speed, said Marking. The maximum speed is yet to be determined.
Residents in highly-populated areas who are only offered one out of the two current internet providers, which are the Champlain Telephone Company and Spectrum, will be able to hook up.
Fiber infrastructure will be expanded this fall into the existing franchise area on several roads throughout the towns of Champlain, Mooers and Altona.
Not everyone on these roads will be hooked up at first, said Outside Plant Manager Steve Southwick, due to some of them not falling into the state’s qualifying census blocks, particularly ones in Champlain and those on less populated roads.
The plan is to install the fiber infrastructure, both aerially on existing telephone lines and underground, by the end of 2018 and hook up the 334 households in 2019 and 2020.
Once that’s complete, Southwick said the Champlain Telephone Company’s next move is to provide service to the homes not included in the grant.
The cost to do this and the number of customers who would benefit are yet to be determined, said company officials, as they’re focusing right now on meeting the state-mandated deadline of the end of 2018.
Source: http://www.suncommunitynews.com/articles/the-sun/champlain-telephone-offers-broadband-update/