Spencer Municipal Utilities is continuing to expand fiber to the home communication services throughout Spencer beginning next month with phase III of the project. Phase I has been finished up which serves approximately 700 customers and underground construction is finished for phase II with nearly 2,000 additional homes and businesses in Spencer. Phase III will include over 1,100 homes and businesses.
Fiber to the home is the delivery of a communications signal over optical fiber from SMU’s switching equipment all the way to the service address.
“Just like internet service has evolved from dial up to digital service lines (DSL) and cable modem, fiber will give customers the next level of service to continue to improve the way they live, work and play and we are continuing to build out this service throughout the community of Spencer,” says Amanda Gloyd, marketing & community relations manager.
This new method of delivering services will replace the existing copper infrastructure such as telephone wires and coaxial cable. SMU started constructing the communications utility in 1999 and began offering service to customers in the fall of 2000.
“This will provide higher bandwidth to customers which will enable customers to experience video, internet and voice services beyond our already reliable services,” adds Gloyd.
Since SMU first began offering Internet service to customers the amount used by customers has increased and we expect to see that continue. For example, the average peak usage from customers in the fall of 2010 was 125Mbps and today it averages around 1.3 Gbps with peaks over 2.5 Gbps. The project to convert the whole town of Spencer will be finished in a total of four construction phases.
Customers affected by the updates to our system will be notified when the time comes that we need their assistance in getting their service address set up.
Spencer Municipal Utilities is a leading provider of cable, internet and telephone in the Spencer community and has been providing water since 1886 and electric services since 1901.
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