This is the 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 — The construction of a town-owned fiber-optic network should start soon after the Select Board approved a municipal agreement with Whip City Fiber during its meeting on July 20.
“So, as the make-ready is done, we can start our construction phase, and it should be probably done within a year,” said Jamie Cincotta, a telecom superintendent for Whip City Fiber, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Westfield Gas & Electric.
The network, which has been in the pipeline for more than five years, will concentrate on installing the fiber-optic cable in what Select Board member Doug Moglin called “the woods.”
“The fern woods, the birch woods. Those woods, because of the density,” he said.
The fiber service areas that will be part of the pilot project will include the neighborhoods along Pineywood, Fernwood, Birchwood, and Thurgood roads. Cables will be hung on utility poles along Powder Mill Road.
Moglin said the pilot project will include the installation of service for the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District’s schools and the Southwick Public Library.
Deedy asked if the rates for the service had been set.
Moglin answered that $89 a month for residential service had been informally agreed to but not formally set.
That prompted Deedy to comment that if the town “can’t get those numbers to work, we’re done.”
He was referring to having the service’s subscribers pay off a $3-million bond authorization approved by Town Meeting in 2023.
“Well, that’s right. We got to show that we can demonstrate the take rate that every other city in town has a competitive incumbent has been able to do. But we have to prove that the Southwick people will also take it at that rate,” Moglin said.
The take rate is also considered the participation rate, which is the minimum number of subscribers it would take to pay off the bond over a period of years.
During the 2025 Town Meeting, the Select Board requested $15 million to build out the network for the entire town over five years.
It was determined that the take rate needed to be above 45% for the numbers to work.
The borrowing authorization needed 371 votes of the 557 cast for the two-thirds needed to be approved. The final vote was 353 voting yes and 204 voting no, just missing the threshold by 18 votes.
At the Select Board meeting, Deedy recognized the project as a “long time coming.”
However, he said there would be some “negativity, because, you know, [it] lost by so many votes anyways the first round.”
Moglin pushed back, reminding him that it was voted down by 20 residents, which prompted a comment by Deedy.
“A vote’s a vote,” he said.
Moglin pushed back again.
“To be fair, it was 20 for the borrowing authorization for all the money. The correlation was that the majority of the town was in favor of the project. Just not two-third that you needed to borrow that much money,” he said.
Moglin then said that if the pilot project is successful in reaching the participation rate and expands into other areas of town, “it’s going to get a lot more expensive … look at the cost of what we’ve seen in this business over the last few years. It has not come down. It’s gone the wrong way.”
While on his “pulpit,” he said, “that’s why we’re doing Fernwood, Birchwood first. That’s the low-hanging fruit. But the people that live on the west end of town up Granville Road or out that way, they’re going to need this service as much as anyone else.”
“And it was important to me as, as a select board member and as a member of the community, to make this a project that would benefit everyone in the town of Southwick, not just a select few,” he said.
If not, he added, a company that installs fiber-optic cable would have just “come down College Highway and hit all the businesses and the few residences along College Highway.”
The upfront money the town has used for the project consisted of $900,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds, a $250,000 state grant that must be used for the network’s construction and the $3 million bond.
