Edge Broadband, a Whitewater-based Internet services provider, secured a $116,395 grant from the state last week. Brian Madl, the company’s owner and president, said the grant will bolster a fiber-optic expansion project in parts of the town of Sugar Creek, a region that significantly lacks access to broadband Internet.
The grant from the state Public Service Commission will fund about 40 percent of Phase 2 of the company’s project, servicing the 100-home neighborhood north of County A just south of Lake Wandawega, Madl said.
Construction on those fiber-optic lines will begin “as soon as the (grant) check is in our shop. The goal is to have that area completed this season and to have customers up and running,” Madl said.
The company’s Phase 1 began in November, and it’s already nearing completion. About 109 homes just north of Silver Lake are poised to begin service in the next few weeks, Madl said. Another 40 homes just east of County ES are expected to have service soon.
Gary Beckett, who lives on Aspen Road in the Phase 1 area, said he is served by TDS Telecom and pays $80 a month for a package that includes Internet speeds of five megabits per second.
By contrast, Spectrum’s lowest Internet speed offered in Janesville is 100 Mbps — 20 times faster than what Beckett gets from TDS.
“That’s pathetic by today’s standards,” Beckett said. “It’s annoying. Other than searching the Internet and checking emails, you can’t really do anything.”
According the state Public Service Commission, about 16 percent of rural Walworth County doesn't have access to high-speed Internet, which the Federal Communication's Commission classifies as 24 Mbps.
In the town of Sugar Creek, some residents have been confined to Internet provided by TDS for years. Those interviewed by The Gazette all expressed frustration with their Internet speeds.
Julie Riese, who lives in the Phase 2 area of the project, said she’s a TDS customer. As a personal trainer, she’s often unable to access her training videos, she said, and many people in the area have been looking for faster Internet for a while.
“Over the last seven years, TDS is just not upgrading anything to come up with the faster times. And sometimes my service will go down, and I can’t reconnect until the next day,” Riese said. “All I know is, I have multiple problems with it.”
While Madl said the company’s prices aren’t set in stone, he’s looking to offer monthly packages between $45 and $100 with speeds up to 1,000 Mbps. The fiber-optic lines, which are widely considered the fastest form of broadband Internet, will connect to centers in Chicago, which Madl touted as a bonus.
Phase 1 of the project totaled about $150,000, and Madl said the company paid for all costs out of pocket. Phase 2 will total about $290,000, with the company footing 60 percent of the bill and the state grant providing the rest, Madl said.
Once Phase 2 is completed, Madl said the company plans to continue expanding its fiber-optic presence throughout the region. In the next phase, they’ll install lines north toward the Lauderdale Lakes region, eventually crossing to the east side of Highway 12.
Several businesses and Tibbets Elementary School also fall within the company’s service zone for Phase 2, but they could not be reached for comment.
“This is going to be a 30- to 50-year product. It’s expensive, but it’s a long-term product,” Madl said. “The demand is there. As a long as our doors are open, there will be no problem in making this work.”
©2018 The Janesville Gazette (Janesville, Wis.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
