Fiber wars come to St. Joseph

Mar. 30—Spring is a time for flowers, but this year in St. Joseph something else is popping out of the ground.

Painted stripes and tiny flags are visible across the city. These markers signify a wave of construction in St. Joseph, much of it to bury fiber optic cable for companies that are entering the local market with plans to offer high-speed Internet service.

"They'll see it," said Craig Zimmerman, government affairs manager for an Indiana-based telecommunications company called Metronet. "They'll see the trucks and the drills when it's actually being built in their neighborhood."

Metronet and United Fiber, which is based in Savannah, Missouri, are engaged in what could be called a fiber war in St. Joseph. Both announced plans last year to expand into the St. Joseph market. Both have crews throughout town marking underground lines, digging small trenches and stringing fiber along right-of-way.

In a few areas, primarily in north and east St. Joseph, some customers already have been able to sign up for service.

"We're up now to 25 crews working," said Darren Farnan, general manager of United Fiber. "It's an aggressive build schedule. We want to get it set up as soon as possible."

United Fiber, a subsidiary of the rural electric cooperative United Electric, is investing $50 million in its fiber expansion and plans to provide access to the whole city in the next 18 months. Metronet, a company that has focused on serving midsized communities primarily in the Midwest, expects to spend about $25 million on its St. Joseph expansion.

"We think we will complete all of our build in St. Joseph by the end of next year," Zimmerman said. "We're kind of putting our foot on the gas."

Both companies share some similarities in providing fiber-based broadband service with symmetrical speeds for both uploads and downloads. Both offer packages that range from 100 megabytes to 1 gigabyte or more.

When United Fiber announced plans to come to St. Joseph, the general thought was that it would compete with Optimum, the St. Joseph internet and cable provider previously known as Suddenlink. An Optimum representative said the company offers a hybrid fiber-coax network in St. Joseph. It provided a statement that, "Optimum is proud to serve the St. Joseph market with our advanced portfolio of connectivity services, including internet with speeds of up to 1 Gig delivered over our fiber-rich network, along with mobile, TV and home phone."

But now it seems that United is competing just as much with Metronet. Officials from both Metronet and United didn't deny that the market, once dominated by a single company that operated under a local franchise, is extremely competitive.

"That's kind of the name of the game," Zimmerman said. "The residents and the businesses are going to have great options and they're going to be able to from a pricing perspective, from a service perspective, see which one of the providers is best for them."

Farnan said United Electric highlights its local connections. It's a subsidiary of United Electric Cooperative and has focused on bringing fiber to more isolated rural areas.

"We're here. We're local," he said. "We've kind of had our own plan."

United has received government funds to expand rural broadband, but Farnan said that money has to go to certain census tracts in more isolated, hard-to-serve areas.

"So when we build in these communities like Maryville, Savannah or St. Joe, that's done on our own dime," he said.

Both companies are drawing interest from the public, with work crews frequently stopped to ask when service becomes available. Farnan said the United website gets up to 50 hits a day from St. Joseph addresses.

"That's really the focus," Farnan said, "to make sure that broadband is not a barrier in St. Joseph."

United has largely completed its construction east of Interstate 29 and is moving west. Those with questions about when it's available in their neighborhood can go to unitedfiber.com/st-joseph-mo/.

The same goes for Metronet, which updates its progress at construction.metronet.com/cct. Its website shows construction going along Ashland Avenue and areas around Frederick Avenue between 36th and 28th streets.

"They need to have the same access that the larger cities do," Zimmerman said. "That's where Metronet really found its sweet spot."

Greg Kozol can be reached at greg.kozol@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowKozol.