LCUB bringing fiber optic cable
Lenoir City Utilities Board got the green light from Farragut Municipal Planning Commission during its meeting Thursday, July 20, on LCUB’s project to install fiber optic cable throughout Town.
“We’re glad you’re here,” Mayor Ron Williams, who sits on the Planning Commission, told LCUB and FiberRise (fiber optics cable contractors).
After electing Commissioner Scott Russ as chairman, Commissioner Ed St. Clair as vice chairman and Commissioner Shannon Preston as secretary, FMPC heard about LCUB’s plan.
“There’re a number of reasons why (LCUB is) doing this, in addition to the telecommunications component,” Town Community Development director Mark Shipley said. “This is also intended to help with their reliability of electrical service, balance supply and demand, make it more efficient with electrical service, provide for next-generation automated metering, electric cars ... that we all know are coming on the horizon.
“So, they’re trying to get ahead of the game,” he added. “It’s a big undertaking, obviously, that’s all fiber throughout the Town.”
For residents acquiring Internet service through LCUB, the installation would mean higher Internet speeds and ability to perform more functions, such as better Zoom calls.
“They’ll be using overhead distribution lines where they’re available; and then, where they’re not, the will be going underground with directional boring, and that’s going to be most of our newer subdivisions,” Shipley said. “They will be dividing the Town into what’s called ‘design areas,’ and they’re going to start with the fiber installation, working their way outward from their different substations.
“Their goal is try to install the fiber, roughly, in a year from the time they start,” he said. “It’s pretty ambitious but I certainly hope they can do that.”
However, access to the fiber will not be immediate.
“They’ll probably be about a three- to four-month time lag for each area once they have fiber installed to get access to that service,” Shipley said. “There’s time after that’s installed where you can actually retain the service.
“They’ll be working with the Town staff, mainly the engineering department, for right-of-way permits and to make sure … sights are restored to pre-construction condition, traffic control …” he said.
Lenoir City resident Jennifer Morris, a Farragut Middle School teacher who has two properties in Farragut, urged FMPC to approve the plan.
When she moved from Farragut to a residence near Melton Hill Lake 2015-16, she discovered she was cut off from cell phone and Internet services and made it her mission of to find good services. She reached out to many people and LCUB was the only ones who listened.
“There are areas in Farragut that are like that today (no Internet or cell phone service), and it is not fun,” Morris said.
Jeremy Walden, director of LCUB’s Electric Engineering and Operations director, said the fiber optic cable is serving multiple purposes.
“The Electric Department is a vital piece of this because it is part of the modernization project,” he said. “About 83.6 percent of this fiber network is going to be utilized for electrical purposes, (and) about 16.4 percent for broadband purposes.
“No matter what would have happened if we didn’t get approval from the state comptrollers to do the broadband services, we were going to move forward with the electrical grid modernization project,” Walden said. “It may have taken us 10, 15 years to fulfill that dream of putting the fiber optics out there versus now we’re getting the luxury of getting the broadband revenue back in.
“The electric department is leasing this fiber to the broadband division,” he added.
