ToledoTel is on track to finish getting an entire South Lewis County town hooked up with fiber by the end of the year.
Dale Merten, COO of ToledoTel, said the telecommunications company has about eight customers left to switch over, and he expects it will be done by Christmas.
Each switchover takes two to four hours, which includes removing the old copper facilities, hooking up the new fiber and making sure all the wireless gadgets in a home connect properly.
Merten said an average home has 11 wireless electronics, so ensuring those all work right can take a while.
“Printers have been a nightmare,” Merten said with a laugh.
Merten also added that customers are learning that while fiber is faster, if all of their gadgets are connected to a lower subscription, they’ll experience dialup speed.
The about $18 million project to bring fiber to the town has brought a few new people to Toledo, including a number of telecommuters, Merten said.
He recently spoke of one person from Texas who chose to buy a home in Toledo because of the fiber network.
“They said the house wasn’t quite perfect, but (they) can fix that,” he said.
The company has also laid 12 to 15 blocks of fiber in Morton after a couple businesses inquired about the possibility.
With the fiber in the ground, ToledoTel is talking with Centralia College’s Morton campus about hooking it up.
The company is also accepting business and residential hookup inquiries, and can offer them up to 500 megabytes.
However, not all businesses and homes will be able to connect, though those where the company’s antenna is visible should be able to be hooked up.
He said interested businesses and residents can contact ToledoTel via its website at toledotel.com/contact-us or call (360) 864-4552 to find out whether or not they can be hooked up.
If Morton has enough customers, in the future Merten said he would like to build out more fiber.
