Broadband project moving forward despite snags

A project to dramatically upgrade the county’s broadband internet infrastructure will pay off in savings for area taxpayers even as the project falls short of goals for this construction season.

“There is good news and bad news,” said county supervisor Mike Bub, who has been spearheading the project for the past two and a half years.

The bad news is that WANRack, the firm hired to install the middle-mile fiber optic network in the county was only able to install 380,000 feet of the planned 460,000 feet of conduit and 140,000 feet of fiber optic cable has been installed.

The good news is that the fiber that has been installed will be to the following sites by the end of the month: Medford town hall, Holy Rosary Catholic School, Taylor County Courthouse, Frances L. Simek Memorial Library, Immanuel Lutheran School, Taylor County Highway Department, Commission on Aging office, county human services offi ce, Medford City Hall, Taylor County Fairgrounds, Medford tower by the education center, Taylor County land conservation office, Stetsonville village hall, Deer Creek town hall and Little Black town hall.

The county’s broadband committee has also selected Charter to be the internet service provider for the sites on the county’s network at this time. Bub explained that the county previously had a contract with Charter for internet service into 2023 and Charter was the lowest bidder to the request for proposals put out to ISP firms.

Bub emphasized that the contract is for the 32 sites planned to be on the county’s network at this time. Of those planned 32 sites, he said WANRack was only able to connect 15 before having to stop work for the season.

Bub said they plan to have wireless internet at the Taylor County Fair next summer serving both the fair office and the grounds.

The start of the project had been delayed waiting for materials due to supply chain issues last spring, and with much of the rural conduit being run along the ditch lines, there were numerous times this year where work was slowed due to wet conditions.

Under terms of the contract between WANRack and the county, payments are made based on project completion goals rather than on timing. While the hope had been to have all the connections in place before the end of the year, this proved to not be feasible, especially as the weather started getting colder. The county’s contract stipulated the next payment would be made after half the sites on the list had been connected.

“The taxpayers are protected,” Bub said, noting WANrack will get their pay when they are done with the project.

As weather started to turn colder this fall, the crews were only able to work from about noon to 5 p.m. due to the temperatures being below freezing for most of the day. The directional boring equipment used to lay the conduit can only run when the temperature is above freezing due to the water pumps. Running them at lower temperatures risks damage to the machines.

In addition, frequent fall snowfall made it a challenge for crews to spot locate markers for other underground utilities as well as creating sloppy work conditions and greater than normal disruption of the surface areas.

Rather than attempting to continue this winter, the crews were pulled out and will return when the weather warms up this spring with the goal of having the network completed by June depending on the weather.

Despite the network not being fully in place, Bub said the places that are hooked to the county’s network will see benefits including free internet service and no fiber charge. At the county level, the savings are about $3,000 a month in lower fiber access charges, this will translate into $36,000 in savings over the course of the next year for just the county, not including the savings to the towns or other municipalities.

The construction process for installing conduit hasn’t been without its hiccups. A subcontractor working in the town of Roosevelt did not follow some of the specifications installing the line too close to CTH DD and punched through some culverts rather than going under the culverts as required.

In those cases, county highway personnel and town officials brought it to the county’s attention and WANRack was contacted and worked to rectify the situations.

“I think WANRack has done an excellent job,” Bub said of the overall project. He looked forward to getting the additional sites connected this spring and market with other service providers to build off of the network to provide services to individual residential and commercial customers. Bub compares the network to being a spiderweb, with branching lines going out from the main lines. Bub projected that by the second half of 2022 businesses and homes would be able to get connected.

He said he understands people’s impatience in wanting the project done. “The project takes time,” he said.

Bub is disappointed the county has not been able to secure some of the millions of dollars in state and federal grant dollars available. He said many of the grants focus on providing fiber optic connections to homes. While more urban portions of the county will have this option, for the more rural areas, this is not cost-effective and instead the county is looking at connecting fiber to a series of towers which will provide coverage in those areas.