Fiber to the home broadband internet project nearing critical juncture

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Charles City will soon have to decide whether it’s ready to go all in.

In the meantime, the chips are still on the table.

The path to an $11.5 million fiber-to-the-home community broadband internet project continues to become more clear after the Broadband Commission met this week after a hiatus of five months.

The large undertaking could connect residents and businesses in Charles City with a triple-play package of internet, video/TV and telephone with the objective of providing a fast, reliable and universally available network to thousands within the city.

Currently NewCom Technologies, along with Eric Lampland and Lookout Point Communications, is putting some of the finishing touches on the design and engineering phase — which came at a cost of approximately $381,000.

This network architecture and work scope phase is being funded by existing city reserves out of the general fund.

“We’ve done the survey. We know where we think we want to go,” said Lampland at the commission meeting Wednesday evening.

Lampland, owner and consultant for Lookout Point, said the physical survey work was completed ahead of schedule. That outside plant architecture deals with measuring the physical layout of 332,640 feet or 63 miles of fiber.

“This gets us that much closer to fruition of the fiber project become a reality,” said Charles City Administrator Steve Diers.

If all goes as planned, the broadband project could be breaking ground on the build phase by late summer.

Lampland said if the city proceeds to that third stage, it will need to approve the plans and specifications sometime around May. That means a vote by the City Council could soon take place.

Once the plans are approved to that phase, the city would be fully on-board and committed to the project.

Diers said the project can be funded in large part through revenue bonds, where the fees people and businesses pay to use the system would pay off the bonds sold to provide the initial financing.

“The primary outcome of the work we’re doing right now is a business plan that incorporates sufficient detail to support funding,” said Lampland.

He said bids are expected to come in today (Friday) from four vendors that could begin the physical architecture work on the ground to break dirt and possibly lay down fiber. Those vendors are Calix, ADTRAN, Nokia and EdgeCore. The requests for proposals were sent out in January.

Lampland said that the work done by one of those companies could exceed $1 million in the build phase.

“It will take me awhile to analyze what they actually say,” said Lampland about the bids.

The fiber link would more than likely run along a line that involves Waverly, New Hampton, Cedar Falls and Mason City. Lampland said that part of the Cedar Falls ring is already built.

The next step Lampland said the commission needs to take is to determine where the central location for the data center would be — or as Diers calls it, “ground zero.”

“In my mind, I’ve almost kind of come around full circle on that. We were looking at 500 North Grand to be the location of the telecom,” said Diers.

Members of the commission will tour the building this morning. Talk focused on using the 1970s portion of the building at 500 North Grand that has three levels, including a basement.

A developer recently agreed to purchase part of the building — the 1932 section — from the Charles City School District to create market-rate apartments.

“We could lease and/or own a portion of that and grow that as we need to,” said Diers.

Diers also added that there would be minimal cost to reconfigure the structure, which used to be the old middle school building in Charles City. Diers said there is roughly $200,000 budgeted in the project for such work.

Other possible locations for the nerve center, as several in the commission have called it, are the building at 401 North Main and where Mills Inc. used to run its downtown offices. The building at 401 N. Main currently houses the Charles City Chamber of Commerce, Charles City Area Development Corp. and Community Revitalization.

Diers said the price tag to purchase the former Mills Inc. building is around $300,000.

The commission will also need to make key decisions regarding the personnel it will hire to run the data center.

Lampland said he is sourcing integration people that could also “set the whole thing up for you.” Lampland gave a ballpark figure of three to four weeks about wanting to know where the commission was at in terms of the hiring of personnel.

Diers also reached out to MidAmerican Energy about possibly partnering in the project.

He noted that Charles City would be one of the first communities to start its own internet system without also already having its own electric utility.

“I reached out to our private electric utility and see if they had any interest in getting out on the ground floor,” said Diers. “I think they had some initial interest.”

The commission is also looking to partner with another entity, such as New Hampton. That would lower costs and create a shared service. The big question in that regard is how much local control would the city want to have in terms of the running the network.

Funds for the second phase (design and engineering) would ultimately get reimbursed through long-term financing, according to Diers.

Josh Mack, a voting member of the commission, said topics such as sharing the operation with New Hampton, are questions and issues that he would certainly address at the broadband’s next meeting.

Mayor Dean Andrews announced that Cheryl Erb and Cady Mead will be officially appointed to the Broadband Commission at a later date. Erb was in attendance on Wednesday. There are five voting members of the Broadband Commission – Mack, Danny Wilson Jr., Jeff Marty, Mead and Erb.

The next broadband meeting is tentatively scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26.