A meeting was held with Fidium on August 31st to get current status. The area served by TDS has all the agreements in place with TDS, and both TDS and Fidium are moving forward with ‘make-ready’, which means installation can proceed. But... the current holdup is Eversource. They actually own the poles, and it seems they are going to want to replace several poles to provide mandatory clearance of all the power and fiber lines from each other and from trees, the ground, etc. Nothing can happen until Eversource schedules and completes their work. Fidium expects this to happen soon, but they have no control over it. The Fidium people the town works with have been very responsive.
For those that have had issues with business lines, there are two business units in Consolidated that are involved. One is Fidium, which is residential fiber. The other is Consolidated Business, which provides old-style copper lines to businesses. Since they are independent business units, communication between the two is not great and their service plans do not overlap. However, Fidium is preparing to roll out their business side which will be modern fiber using the same fiber that’s already been run in town. That should eliminate the issues some that are classified as businesses are experiencing.
Thanks,
Bill Ezell, Select Board
Jessica Hipp, Broadband Subcommittee
Original source can be found here.
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