December 2016 Vol. 71 No. 12
General
FTTH Booming In Rural Texas Panhandle Fiber Installation All Going Underground
The steady growth of fiber optic cable deployment in the United States steadily continues with more and more households and businesses being directly connected to fiber.
While newspaper headlines often announce big carrier plans to bring fiber to an increasing number of cities, fiber to the home (FTTH) is also still coming to a growing number of small towns in remote rural areas that major carriers find uneconomical to serve. In fact, many of these rural systems bring a level of service far beyond that available to customers in metropolitan areas.
The pace of rural fiber deployment, assisted by federal funding, is impressive. For example, Mid-Plains Rural Telephone Cooperative, Tulia, TX, serves 2,579 customers across 3,769 square miles in the Texas Panhandle and just completed a 70-mile extension of its underground fiber network.
“As have many small independent companies, Mid-Plains has invested heavily in fiber optic cable,” said Rick Hurt, Mid-Plains CEO and general manager. “Now we are experiencing the rewards by being able to offer up to a 1gig broadband connection to our customers. Broadband is definitely the driving force in today’s market.”
More for less
Hurt said customers today expect more for less money.
“We are providing that,” he said, “with a robust fiber network backbone that extends from a customer’s home or office to redundant DATA centers. We have seen landlines stabilize after experiencing a steady decline over the last 10 years. We also have offered IPTV (internet protocol television) service to our fiber customers for the last three years, which has grown to a 25 percent take rate today.
“Without a doubt, the success that Mid-Plains is experiencing today is directly related to the investment in fiber optics.”
The latest extension brings fiber to 80 percent of Mid-Plains’ service area. Customers are excited, and grateful, to have a fiber connection that offers access to both high-speed broadband and IPTV services.
The latest extension originally was to install 59 miles of new fiber cable, but was expanded to 70 miles for a total of 1,588 miles. Demand for broadband services was a major factor in expanding the fiber network in this area. One hundred percent of the cable is underground.
This project is located in the Goodnight exchange, which is 25 miles east of Amarillo, TX. Most of the construction was in open country with the exception of the small town of Goodnight.
“It is mostly a rural ranching and farming area,” Hurt said. “There are, however, several customers that commute to professional jobs in and around Amarillo. We have even been contacted by people interested in buying homes in the area to ensure they will have access to fiber optic services.”
Growth for Goodnight
“This project increased fiber to the premises (FTTP) in the Goodnight exchange by 35 percent,” Hurt continued. “The completion of this project extends a fiber connection to 95 percent of the Goodnight exchange. We only had one location that elected not to take the fiber.
“Most of the cable was plowed in, along with several miles of expensive rock that were open trenched to get all the fiber underground,” Hurt said. “We felt it was worth the extra expense to get all of the fiber in the ground. We have experienced ice storms in the past which devastated aerial plant in this particular exchange, so it was a very high priority to protect the integrity of the fiber plant by eliminating aerial applications.”
Contractors completed 95 percent of the construction. Static plows were used. In addition to areas trenched through rock, horizontal directional drilling (HDD) was used for road and water crossings, and in town. Cable was installed 48 inches deep.
The contractor was MP Nexlevel, Maple Lake, MN, using D8 Cat and John Deere 1050 equipment, Vermeer and Ditch Witch directional drills, and backhoes and necessary support equipment. Mid-Plains crews completed the remaining five percent of construction. Mid-Plains operates Ditch Witch vibratory plows, trenchers and HDD equipment.
Mid-Plains manages day-to-day operations of its system and uses a professional service company for support, as needed.
“Our goal is to extend the fiber network to 100 percent of the customers we serve by the end of 2019,” he added.
Mid-Plains Rural Telephone cooperative was established in 1950, and the original exchanges went into service with 105 subscribers. Mid-Plains installed its first underground cable in the mid-1970s to replace aerial cable.
Throughout the years, Mid-Plains has expanded and adopted the latest technologies to provide the highest quality services.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Mid-Plains Rural Telephone Cooperative, (806) 668-4420, midplains.coop
MP Nexlevel, (320) 963-2400, mpnexlevel.com
John Deere, (309) 748-0114, johndeere.com
Ditch Witch, (800) 654-6481, ditchwitch.com
Vermeer Corp., (888) 837-6337, vermeer.com
Comments