(Dec. 22, 2016) While Ocean Pines residents wait to hear if the board of directors will grant an easement to bring high-speed fiber optic Internet to the community, that work is already being done about 100 miles away in Kent County.
FTS Fiber, the company that asked for the easement and whose CEO, Brett Hill, is both a director and the interim general manager in the Pines, is the same company doing work in Kent.
Progress on that, according to C. Scott Boone, Kent County director of information technology, is going well. He said about 40-45 percent of the project, which officially started in June, was “in the ground already.”
“In my mind, they’re ahead of schedule,” Boone said, adding that he previously helped with major fiber build-outs in the state by Atlantic Broadband and networkMaryland. “I’ve never seen anybody work at this rate before.”
Boone, who also formerly chaired a broadband expansion in Kent County, described the new fiber initiative as “my baby.”
He started that work in early 2014, attending conferences and specialty courses in order to learn the ins and outs of how the technology worked and which methods of delivery had been successful.
“We really, really put a lot of work into saying, ‘what would be the best model?’” He said. “Traditionally, people think grants are the way to go [and] there’s an ocean of money in the federal government that’s going to make these things happen. But, as we saw with the networkMaryland build, there are stipulations – there’s only certain usages for these federal or state-funded build.
“What we were really looking for was an economic development aspect to this — how do we retain our businesses and once we’ve retained, attract [new business],” Boone added. “In the end, I went to my commissioners, it was probably January 2015, and I gave a presentation and said, ‘I think we can build this,’ which was pretty similar to what FTS ultimately proposed.”
The Kent County Commissioners gave the go-ahead to write a request for proposals and Boone underscored the important of a “public-private partnership,” where both parties became investors and ultimately stakeholders.
He said two of the three commissioners in the county have been on that board for at least 10 years – the same amount of time Boone had been the IT director. During that period, county leadership has been supportive of the notion that having broadband available is good for business.
“We’ve had a united political front,” Boone said. “And they have a very healthy fund balance – we have a lot of money in the bank, unlike a lot of other counties.”
With funding available and a shared vision, Boone released the RFP and received what he described as several strong responses. One of those, from FTS, “blew us all away.”
“They had references [like Verizon Wireless, Loyola University and Johns Hopkins] and everyone vouched for these guys,” Boone said. “They came in and I had everything from proposals of two-to-three pages and then there was that FTS one sitting on the edge of the desk in a three-ring binder with so much detail – I couldn’t believe it. I said, ’how in the hell did they do this?’ The RFP only had a month-and-a-half opening.”
Kent County leadership wanted part of the build to include 54 “anchor institutions” in the area – the FTS proposal would serve all of them.
“I said, let’s not build a bridge to nowhere. If we build this thing, even if we end up building our own using contractors, then we’ll hook up as many sites in Kent County as possible – every library branch, school, police station, firehouse – everything we can give away our services to let’s do it,” Boone said. “FTS came in and they were the only one who were able to build to all 54 anchor institutions that we requested, and they added some as well.”
In terms of economic development, Boone pointed to county a webpage advertising “Our Gigabit County is Open for Business” that has received close to 50,000 hits since July.
“For a county like Kent that’s very small – we’ve only got about 20,000 people – we’re putting this right in the laps of … next-level development projects and they’re eating it up,” he said. “Our main page only has about 12,000 [hits].”
Overall, Boone said FTS has been “very easy to work with.”
“We have not spent one dollar so far,” Boone said, adding that the eventual cost for Kent County would be $4.5 million. “We’re guessing it’s probably about $15-$20 [million] overall.
“From our perspective it’s been spectacular. We’ve loved our relationship with these guys,” he added. “We keep weekly updates [online] for the citizens and those updates come from FTS. It’s been an unbelievable experience.
“Sometimes I wake up and think, was this a dream?” Boone said. “They put their money where their mouth is and that’s what one of our commissioners said – when you’re fronting the cost and you’re doing this entire build and we’re not paying until the testing is turned over, how do you turn it down?”
Boone said the anchor institutions – weather and other factors permitting – could be online by April. Residential and other customers will follow with the next phase, planned for fall 2017.
Updates on that project can be found at www.fiber.kentcounty.com.
According to Boone, Queen Anne’s County will interview FTS about a similar deal this week.
FTS Fiber, the company that asked for the easement and whose CEO, Brett Hill, is both a director and the interim general manager in the Pines, is the same company doing work in Kent.
Progress on that, according to C. Scott Boone, Kent County director of information technology, is going well. He said about 40-45 percent of the project, which officially started in June, was “in the ground already.”
“In my mind, they’re ahead of schedule,” Boone said, adding that he previously helped with major fiber build-outs in the state by Atlantic Broadband and networkMaryland. “I’ve never seen anybody work at this rate before.”
Boone, who also formerly chaired a broadband expansion in Kent County, described the new fiber initiative as “my baby.”
He started that work in early 2014, attending conferences and specialty courses in order to learn the ins and outs of how the technology worked and which methods of delivery had been successful.
“We really, really put a lot of work into saying, ‘what would be the best model?’” He said. “Traditionally, people think grants are the way to go [and] there’s an ocean of money in the federal government that’s going to make these things happen. But, as we saw with the networkMaryland build, there are stipulations – there’s only certain usages for these federal or state-funded build.
“What we were really looking for was an economic development aspect to this — how do we retain our businesses and once we’ve retained, attract [new business],” Boone added. “In the end, I went to my commissioners, it was probably January 2015, and I gave a presentation and said, ‘I think we can build this,’ which was pretty similar to what FTS ultimately proposed.”
The Kent County Commissioners gave the go-ahead to write a request for proposals and Boone underscored the important of a “public-private partnership,” where both parties became investors and ultimately stakeholders.
He said two of the three commissioners in the county have been on that board for at least 10 years – the same amount of time Boone had been the IT director. During that period, county leadership has been supportive of the notion that having broadband available is good for business.
“We’ve had a united political front,” Boone said. “And they have a very healthy fund balance – we have a lot of money in the bank, unlike a lot of other counties.”
With funding available and a shared vision, Boone released the RFP and received what he described as several strong responses. One of those, from FTS, “blew us all away.”
“They had references [like Verizon Wireless, Loyola University and Johns Hopkins] and everyone vouched for these guys,” Boone said. “They came in and I had everything from proposals of two-to-three pages and then there was that FTS one sitting on the edge of the desk in a three-ring binder with so much detail – I couldn’t believe it. I said, ’how in the hell did they do this?’ The RFP only had a month-and-a-half opening.”
Kent County leadership wanted part of the build to include 54 “anchor institutions” in the area – the FTS proposal would serve all of them.
“I said, let’s not build a bridge to nowhere. If we build this thing, even if we end up building our own using contractors, then we’ll hook up as many sites in Kent County as possible – every library branch, school, police station, firehouse – everything we can give away our services to let’s do it,” Boone said. “FTS came in and they were the only one who were able to build to all 54 anchor institutions that we requested, and they added some as well.”
In terms of economic development, Boone pointed to county a webpage advertising “Our Gigabit County is Open for Business” that has received close to 50,000 hits since July.
“For a county like Kent that’s very small – we’ve only got about 20,000 people – we’re putting this right in the laps of … next-level development projects and they’re eating it up,” he said. “Our main page only has about 12,000 [hits].”
Overall, Boone said FTS has been “very easy to work with.”
“We have not spent one dollar so far,” Boone said, adding that the eventual cost for Kent County would be $4.5 million. “We’re guessing it’s probably about $15-$20 [million] overall.
“From our perspective it’s been spectacular. We’ve loved our relationship with these guys,” he added. “We keep weekly updates [online] for the citizens and those updates come from FTS. It’s been an unbelievable experience.
“Sometimes I wake up and think, was this a dream?” Boone said. “They put their money where their mouth is and that’s what one of our commissioners said – when you’re fronting the cost and you’re doing this entire build and we’re not paying until the testing is turned over, how do you turn it down?”
Boone said the anchor institutions – weather and other factors permitting – could be online by April. Residential and other customers will follow with the next phase, planned for fall 2017.
Updates on that project can be found at www.fiber.kentcounty.com.
According to Boone, Queen Anne’s County will interview FTS about a similar deal this week.