BRINGING BROADBAND INTERNET SERVICE TO SANDISFIELD

Bringing broadband internet service to Sandisfield

Status as of April 20, 2020 - As was reported in early November last year, the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) has fully executed an agreement with Charter Communications to design and construct a fiber-optic network for providing broadband Internet service to Sandisfield. Charter Communications will be designing and constructing a state of the art fiber-to-the-home network in Sandisfield that will pass at least 96% of the households and businesses in town located on public roads. Soon after the agreement between MBI and Charter was fully executed in early November, Charter Communications began the first phase of the project called the make-ready process. Charter estimated in November that the make-ready process will take 9-12 months to complete.

What exactly is the make-ready process? Make-ready refers to a labor-intensive multi-step process coordinated by MBI with the utility pole owners and Charter. The town does not own the utility poles. First Charter must submit a request (via an application) to the utility pole owners for them to conduct a field inspection of each utility pole in town to determine what, if any, work needs to be performed in order for Charter to be able to attach fiber optic cables and associated electronics to the poles. Judgments are made by the pole owners whether a pole is structurally sound and whether existing power and communication cabling needs to be repositioned. In Sandisfield roughly half of the utility poles in town are owned by Verizon. The other half are owned by Eversource. Next, the utility pole owners determine and provide to Charter a cost estimate for any utility pole work that needs to be performed before additional cables can be attached to the poles. Charter will be paying the utility pole owners to perform the work. Once all necessary work has been performed by the utility pole owners, the completion of the make-ready process results in the issuance of a license for each pole to Charter. Charter can then begin the network construction phase of the project.

On November 14, 2019, Charter submitted a total of 26 applications to the utility pole owners to account for all the utility poles in town. Each application filed can account for up to 200 utility poles. Charter submitted 13 applications to Verizon, and 13 applications to Eversource. MBI has reported that both Verizon and Eversource have hired Pike Corporation to perform all the pole surveys and generate the cost estimates to provide back to Charter. As of April 20 MBI reported that Verizon has submitted Charter 4 out of the 13 cost estimates they will be providing back to them. Also as of April 20 MBI has reported that Eversource has submitted Charter 3 of the 13 cost estimates they will be providing back to them. The remaining estimates are pending processing by Pike. Back in November MBI had reported that the average time (based on work being performed across the state) to produce make-ready cost estimates is about 6.36 months after pole applications are submitted to the pole owners.  However, at this time it is unknown how the current COVID-19 pandemic will impact the schedule for the make-ready work and process. As Charter receives the cost estimates from Verizon and Eversource, they will be providing them with the funding they will need to get all necessary pole work scheduled and completed as soon as possible. Once the make-ready process has been completed Charter expects to complete the construction of the network 12 months later.

Information regarding the project scheduled will be updated as progress is made and reported by MBI. MBI is doing a great job keeping the town informed as Charter makes progress. Stay tuned to learn more about this exciting development to bring broadband Internet to our town!