Countywide broadband on the way
Monticello tower testing now completed
SERVICE TO COME Testing of a pilot tower in Monticello has been completed. County officials hope to add an additional 12 towers, bringing high-speed Internet to underserved areas in Sullivan, by 2022. Provided photo
By Winter Sager | Manor Ink
Monticello, NY – April showers may bring May flowers, but this spring will also bring a new broadband service to Sullivan County.
As previewed in the July 2020 edition of Manor Ink, the county has embarked on an innovative project to bring 5G wireless Internet access to unserved areas of Sullivan. Manor Ink recently talked with Dan Hust, director of communications for the county, and Lorne Green, its chief technology officer, about the progress of the project.
Hust said the project was going well and was now out of the testing phase. “The initial tower that the county founded as the pilot project, in Monticello by the new jail facility, is well under way.” “Antennas were mounted on the tower the first week of December,” Green elaborated. “An equipment enclosure has been installed, with some preliminary monitoring and management equipment installed in that enclosure.”
The Sullivan County Broadband LDC, short for Local Development Corporation, is in charge of implementing broadband service across the county. Green said the county hopes to be in a position by late March for the LDC to begin providing wireless Internet service if they choose.
After that, there are another 12 towers that the county hopes to bring on line. According to Green, the second and third towers have already been approved for grant funding. The county is waiting on the paperwork, but the towers’ design and construction will start soon after that is complete. Another 10 broadband towers are still waiting to be approved for $2.075 million in grant funding. One of those towers will be located at Tennenah Lake and its signal should be able to reach areas in and around Livingston Manor.
“Once money has been received, the plan is to start ordering equipment and getting engineering studies done and just start moving forward,” Green said. “It will likely be late 2021 or early 2022, before all of that is installed, configured, and up and available.”
The broadband Internet provided by these towers will be available to the public and will also provide service to the county for its own needs. As towers are being brought online, the LDC and Broadband Initiative will begin providing subscriptions for those locations. Beginning in April or May, the county hopes to start these subscriptions in Monticello.
The LDC will set a price for Internet service that will hopefully connect people who Spectrum or Verizon cannot reach. Hust expects that the LDC will have pricing that will be at or below what these other providers charge.
Service from the 13 towers in the project should begin taking shape in the next 12 to 18 months and will hopefully cover about 65 percent of the county’s population. Revenues from subscriptions will be used to fund expansion towers. “The ultimate goal and objective is obviously 100 percent coverage,” Green said. “But we have anticipated coverage expectations of 80 percent by the end of 2023.”