This is map of the Fiber Service Areas of town, also called “fiberhoods.” The town is planning to build out the fiber optic network in areas six, 13, and 14 using existing funds earmarked for the project. The original proposed plan had the fiber optic network service eventually being offered to the entire town.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
SOUTHWICK — While it’s been several months since the Select Board committed to building a fiber optic network as a pilot project to gauge customer participation rates, getting the project off the ground is still in the works.
“We have a second contract in front of us,” said Select Board member Douglas Moglin during a recent board meeting, giving a status report on the project.
“[The] contract is to start the minimal project that is funded,” he said, adding the town’s legal counsel has been looking over it so the project can proceed.
Once the Select Board approves the contract, Moglin said “permitting and construction” can get started.
At the Town Meeting last May, there was an article on the warrant asking residents’ approval to borrow $16 million to build out the network throughout the town over five years.
The article got a majority of votes, but not the two-thirds required – it fell 14 votes short.
In June, Moglin, who has championed the project for over five years, came back to the board and proposed using a $3 million borrowing authorization approved by Town Meeting in 2023, $900,000 of American Rescue Plan Act money, and a $250,000 state grant to build a portion of the network using a fiber optic cable that was installed under the rail trail when it was being built.
“We are committing to fund make-ready work for poles that have already been approved in line with the municipal network construction, and the costs for the same will be accommodated within existing funds already approved,” Moglin said about a pole inventory developed when planning for the network to be townwide.
Each pole where cable is hung must be surveyed by the pole owner, mostly Verizon, to determine what cables, if any, need to be moved to make space available for the fiber optic cable.
In August, with the board’s blessing, Moglin began working with Whip City Fiber, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of WG&E, to develop a new contract that would specify where the fiber optic cable would be strung.
At that meeting, he proposed connecting the DPW, public library and the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District to the cable branching off from the trail. With the library included, it would bring the fiber cable nearly to the entrance of the town’s industrial park, Hudson Drive.
This week, Moglin wrote in an email that connecting those municipal buildings to the network was still a “couple of years out.”
He also proposed hanging cable along the north side of Depot Street, where a 100-unit condominium project is planned, and along the north and south sides of South Longyard Road to Liquori Drive, and along the east and west side of Powder Mill Road up to Legion Road.
He also proposed to hang cable along Sheep Pasture Road starting at about 210 Sheep Pasture Road and then continuing along Point Grove Road on the northern side until it reaches the culvert between the north and middle pond of Congamond Lakes. It would be hung on the southern side of the road until it reaches 49 Point Grove.
In those areas, the town will try to get an idea of the participation rate, which is the percentage of potential customers who would subscribe to the service at an estimated price of $89 per month.
During the development of the townwide network plan to present at Town Meeting, it was estimated that a take rate of between 40% and 50% would be needed to pay for the network’s buildout without needing taxpayer funds.
