and an excerpt:
Last Train Leaving
As you know the last attempt to bring high speed internet into the community did not get an adequate community response to the CenturyLink proposal to negotiate for a more reasonable offer. Therefore, it was dropped. That brings us to the last train leaving.
I have been in talks with a company that is interested in bringing Internet Fiber to the Door to a large number of communities here in Northern Arizona which includes us. As you know there is a risk in large ventures like this. To mitigate that risk, a buy in will be required for each community to participate. This buy in will be approximately one year of service and a small fee to bring the fiber to your door on your property including installation of the equipment. This “deposit or pre-payment” will be held in escrow until your service is up and running and then your escrow will disperse. If for some reason the project does not go forward due to a lack of participation from our community your funds will be returned and our community will be bypassed. There will be several tiers of service pricing available to fit your budget. This will be an unlimited bandwidth service, so watching TV over the internet will be possible. This can bring down almost by half of your overall cost by combining your services.
Now that the Virus has changed the business habits of many companies and schools, working and learning from home has become a new way of life for many. This was not for seen late last year while working with CenturyLink.
On a technical note, when the powers goes out, all of our CenturyLink phone and internet service goes out regardless of having a generator to keep your lights on at home. There is no backup power for the CenturyLink equipment feeding our community. This means the SFE Fire Dept has lost all communications too. Poor Cell Phone service is all that is left. The Fiber System will have backup batteries to maintain connectivity for an extended period of time. This will keep many of your cell phone apps and laptops connected with loved ones and others over your fiber internet service Wi-Fi. A backup battery will be required at your home to keep the fiber interface box and Wi-Fi powered up if you don’t have a generator.
For more information, questions and registering for the SFE FIBER project, please visit https://telcomwest.com Don’t mistype the web name or you will get the wrong website. This is an early bird offering so you can plan ahead. In short, we will need about 100 residences to participate to qualify for our portion of the project. For those who don’t participate in the initial project build out, your cost to extend the service across your property to your home will be much higher as the equipment will have to be brought in each time. Everything will be underground.
Be Safe and stay connected,
Judson Swearingen Jr, Member at large and newsletter editor.