FIBERED UP: Grant Co. fiber expansion nears finish line

EPHRATA — A decades-long project to provide fiber optic cable, and fiber access, to most Grant County locations is almost done. Terry McKenzie, senior manager of wholesale fiber for the Grant County PUD, said the buildout is scheduled for completion in 2024.

“We’re about 90-ish (percent) complete with the project customer base, with the customer count,” McKenzie said. “We’re about 60-ish (percent) complete on miles. The very last year and a half is going to be a lot of miles, getting very little customers, because we waited to do the rural (areas) at the end.”

Buildout costs from 2018 to project completion are estimated at about $70.2 million, according to the PUD website.

Utility district Commissioner Tom Flint said the PUD has been working on the fiber expansion since 2000 when the Washington Legislature authorized public utility districts to provide wholesale fiber optic services. Commission support waxed and waned, he said, and there was a three-year moratorium due to a dispute over what constituted wholesale. But the project has continued even with the interruptions.

Commissioners voted in 2018 to work to finish the project with a target date of 2024.

“We have a platform that everybody in Grant County can use,” Flint said. “And it’s a platform that’s what I call future-proof. Our kids will figure out (ways) to use it that we never dreamed of.”

McKenzie said currently crews are working on extending fiber lines around Quincy and recently finished a project near Warden. Fiber is expected to come to areas east of Mattawa, between Mattwa and Royal City, west of George and all around Warden in 2023.

“It really is going outside of the cities, and getting all the fill in the rural areas,” McKenzie said.

The PUD provides what is called the fiber backbone.

“It will provide the infrastructure to ask a service provider to give (service to) the end user anywhere in Grant County,” McKenzie said - with a few exceptions.

Some landowners declined to provide access to property or maintenance easements, so they aren’t part of the project, she said.

“It’s been a long project. I think, though, if you look at the nation and Washington, Grant (County) probably will be one of the first ones to complete the whole area, to fill in. It’s not just a have and have-not. It’s going to be a complete build,” she said.

“And almost all with our own funding,” she added.

Ryan Holterhoff, PUD senior policy analyst for government affairs, said the utility received a $1.6 million grant and loan package for one section of the project in 2018. The rest of the project was funded by the PUD, he said.

David Parkhurst, PUD manager of network engineering, said fiber provides quick and reliable communication.

“High speed and low latency. Low latency means that your response is very fast,” he said.

He used the example of an overseas phone call, where there’s a delay between one person speaking and the other hearing them.

“That was due to high latency because there’s a lot of miles between you. Lots of miles means lots of latency,” he said. “Fiber is very fast - it supports communication at the speed of light.”

But being one of the first to complete its fiber system means that some parts of it are in need of updates. Utility district commissioners approved a contract with Nokia of America June 13 to design, engineer and maintain those upgrades. The total contract cost is $3.7 million.

McKenzie said the upgrades will focus on systems that go back to the beginning of the project.

“The original, late 1990s completed backbone, which all of our district circuits run through. Including wholesale fiber, which is the system that we serve, to the service providers who serve Grant County residents,” McKenzie said.

Parkhurst said the upgrades will make the system faster and increase the amount of traffic it can handle.

“We’re adding significant capacity to our fiber backbone, and replacing the electronics with next-generation equipment that will scale far into the future,” he said. “It’s going to allow the entire network to support more traffic.”

When more people want to use the system, there will be more capacity for them to access, he said.

“I wouldn’t want to say that’s not possible now, but we know there are times of congestion. This will get rid of that,” Parkhurst said.

The upgrades should take a couple of years, he said.

The update project is part of the ongoing maintenance and improvement of the system, McKenzie said.

“We feel very strongly that we’re going to be diligent in our maintenance efforts moving forward,” she said.

Fiber is still a crucial component of information infrastructure, Parkhurst said. Wireless technology works well for some applications, and fiber is better for others.

“The future is both,” he said. “Wireless at the edge is going to continue to be attractive to most people because it’s easy. For terrestrial applications that require larger bandwidth, fiber is going to be the best way to do it for the foreseeable future.”

Flint said the fiber infrastructure is, and will continue to be, of benefit to the county.

“It’s brought a lot of business to Grant County,” he said. “It’s created a lot of jobs. To be able to have a world-class platform like a gigabyte to the home if you want it is almost unavailable anywhere else.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.