By Scott Harrison
Progress on the Rockbridge area’s new fiber optic broadband network continues at a steady clip, say members of the Rockbridge Area Network Authority board. This means area residents are closer to getting access to higher speed Internet service.
“Things are moving along well,” RANA board secretary Dan Grim said. “It took a while in Lexington, but everything is moving smoothly.”
This is in spite of difficulties earlier this year in securing easement permission to bury the broadband network through residents’ properties.
One more fiber optic line needs to be installed in Lexington, stretching from West Nelson Street to Waddell Elementary School. After that, much of the work will focus on connecting the core fiber route between Lexington, Buena Vista and other parts of the county.
RANA board member Gregg Amonette said the inability to secure all the necessary easements “has been frustrating and painful.”
RANA has instead rerouted the fiber optic line in several cases where it could not successfully negotiate property easements. It recently abandoned the initial route to Mt. View Elementary School because easements could not be secured.
Amonette said that in these instances RANA has had to select alternative routes “that make sense economically.”
“Instead of beating our heads against it,” he said, “we have come up with solutions to get around it.”
These solutions include moving the fiber to the other side of the road, or using existing utility poles rather than digging through property.
Grim said and others familiar with the subject said that only a handful of easements still need to be secured. These are on Forge Road north of Buffalo Creek.
Andrew Cohill, president and CEO of Design Nine, the firm managing the project, said he expects to have the remaining easements secured within the next month.
“We should see clear sailing after that,” he said.
Time is also a premium for the $9.9-million project. The $7-million federal stimulus grant awarded to RANA in 2010 runs out in July 2013. That means the project must be finished on time and on budget.
Grim said the main broadband line is “well on its way” to being completed by RANA’s target in March 2013, and other connections finished by the federal deadline.
“We will make the budget deadlines,” Amonette said, “because there is no alternative.”
In 2009, representatives from the county, the two cities and Washington and Lee University formed RANA. Alongside the federal stimulus grant, Washington and Lee put forward another $2.5 million to help build the network’s central data center, located behind Washington and Lee University’s School of Law.
Service providers will be able to rent space in the data center to house their servers and offer Internet, cable, telephone and other services to users over the fiber optic network.
For the work on the fiber optic routes that spread from the data center, RANA contracted ROHL Networks—the U.S. branch of the ROHL Group, a Canadian fiber optic design and installation company.
The Florida-based ROHL Networks was one of five companies to bid for the project. RANA settled on ROHL because of experience and cost. ROHL Networks was awarded the $2.8 million contract to lay more than 130 miles of fiber routes for the broadband network.
ROHL Network operates independently in the United States, but it is owned by the Canadian parent company. Cohill said that there were no firms in the county to do the work. But he added that most of the construction money is staying in the area because ROHL Networks has subcontracted the work to a Staunton company—Computer Cabling Technology Services Inc.
So far, Grim said, ROHL Networks and its subcontractors have done a professional job installing the new fiber routes.
“We’re very pleased with their integrity, especially when working with the permits with the city,” Grim said. “We’re finding similar care working along the highways.”
Work is progress on connecting lines into Buena Vista and then up Route 60 into Lexington. Another line running from Lexington to Raphine is also under construction.
Amonette said that once the network’s 65-mile core is completed, approximately 125 “free drops” will connect businesses and other users to the fiber network.
RANA will not offer service directly to residents and businesses. Instead, those services will come from providers using the broadband network.
Cohill said that the new network will be extremely important for the local economy, especially for economic development and job creation.
“Most of the country doesn’t have anything quite like this,” he said. “The network will be as good as anything else available in the United States.”
Amonette also said new network will provide a tremendous boost for the area.
“It is exciting,” he said. “You can imagine what can be done with unlimited bandwidth.”