Smithville launches Bedford broadband project
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Bedford residents will soon see a new residential multi-gigabit-capable fiber project to improve their Internet connectivity, Elletsville-based Smithville announced Wednesday.
The project is part of the city’s $10 million investment in rural fiber. The design phase has been completed, and the company expects to start laying cables in late 2023 or early next year.
The first phase will make high-speed Internet available to about 300 homes in the 14th Street area. Homes north and west of the area may potentially be included in a later expansion.
The project will have the capacity for future Smithville multi-gigabit service. The company’s high-speed fiber has symmetrical gigabit for 1,000 Mbps download and upload speeds; Smithville said this new project will be faster.
“In part because of its importance to the nearby Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane and the fact that so many of its residents work there, Bedford and Lawrence County has always been considered an important region by Smithville,” Cullen McCarty, executive vice president of Smithville, said in a news release. “As Crane builds its workforce to support microelectronics, hypersonics, and other technology growth, this makes fiber availability vital.”
In the region, Smithville has been building fiber networks in Bloomington, Stanford, southeast Greene County, the Indian Hills region in the Gosport area of Owen County and western Monroe County. That amounts to about 1,000 rural homes and businesses.
To see where cable is being laid, Smithville provides an online map.