SOUTHWICK — It took a “little bit of a ways to get there,” said Select Board Chair Douglas Moglin when making the “cool announcement” that residents can now sign up to become subscribers to the town’s fiber-optic network. He also said residents can indicate interest in receiving the service in the future.
“As of this morning, the website for people to sign up to show interest in becoming a customer of the municipal fiber [network] is available,” Moglin said on Aug. 31 during the board meeting that a dedicated Southwick page on the Whip City Fiber website allows residents to express interest in signing up for the service.
Saying it took a “little bit of a ways” to get to the point where residents in three “fiberhoods” can sign up for the fiber-optic network would probably be considered an understatement.
In fact, it was 2018, when current Select Board member Joseph Deedy was serving as chair of the board, when Whip City Fiber first presented the service as a possible option in the future.
Nearly eight years later, what began as an informal discussion is now a reality.
Moglin said residents in the Fernwood, Birchwood, and Pineywood neighborhoods have probably noticed utility trucks with linemen from Verizon and Eversource creating space on utility poles where the cable will be hung.
However, on the Whip City Fiber’s Southwick page, the three fiberhoods show where the service will be available, and they differ from the original fiberhood map.
When construction starts next summer or fall, according to the Whip City Fiber website, service will be available on Birchwood Road, Feeding Hills Road, Fernwood Road, Gargon Terrace, Hudson Drive, Pineywood Road, Powder Mill Road, and Whalley Way.
Also in the service area are Bonnie View Road, Cedar Street, College Highway from Coes Hill Road to Bugbee Road, Crescent Circle, Feeding Hills Road, Juniper Road, Renny Avenue, Ridge Street, Sefton Drive, Shirley Terrace, Southwick Hill, Depot Street, Evergreen Terrace, Granville Road, Maple Street, and Sheep Pasture Road.
Within the three fiberhoods are the regional schools, the Public Library, and the length of Hudson Drive in the town’s Industrial Park.
Whip City Fiber said service to those areas will be ready in late 2027.
Interestingly, the homes on Rails End Road and Woodland Ridge are surrounded by fiberhoods on three sides but not included in the service area.
That’s because the homes on those roads have underground service, according to Whip City Fiber.
“The pilot program is focusing on homes with existing overhead service. Addresses with underground service will be considered in the future,” according to Whip City Fiber.
When Moglin was making the announcement, board member Joseph Deedy asked if anyone in town could sign up on the site. Moglin said yes.
The Whip City Fiber Southwick page has the entire town broken into 15 other fiberhoods. Residents can enter their addresses to indicate interest in the service.
If the pilot program is successful, Moglin said, those residents who show interest in the service and live adjacent to the first three fiberhoods, will determine the next phase.
But that’s several years down the road.
Moglin said that what is important now is for the pilot to be successful, which could mean future expansion of the network.
“You know, depending on how we do with the [pilot] and what the take rate is out of that trial…we’re going to need additional monies to roll the project forward,” he said.
When the town-owned network project was being developed, it was intended to be financed by subscriber fees, which would pay off a proposed $15-million bond to have the network reach every town home.
To make the project financially viable, the take rate, or participation rate, of between 40% and 50% of the homes in a fiberhood would have to opt for the service, which would cost $89 per month.
That percentage hasn’t changed, despite Town Meeting narrowly voting down the $15 million bond authorization to build out the network; the article needed a two-thirds majority to pass. The final vote was 353 voted yes and 204 voted no, missing the two-thirds threshold by 14 votes.
Being used as up-front money for the pilot project are a $3 million bond authorization that Town Meeting approved in 2023, $900,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds, and a $250,000 state grant.
“We’re working within the confines of what we have and we’ll see where we end up … it’s also going to give us an opportunity to prove out the take rate…now we just got to put [the cable] on the pole and go,” Moglin said during the meeting.
