Rich Brown

We are pleased to report that construction of the main fiber line and connections are nearing completion, and we started to connect customers on November 11th! The installation process will still take a while, and while we expect to move right along, we expect it to take until April or May of 2021 to reach everyone. 

We have started Installations from the hub location near the Common and are working our way out along the fiber routes. As we activate service areas, we will call you to schedule an installation in your home. While we make every effort to be flexible in the choice of days and installation windows available, it is important that we try to complete the installations in reasonable order. Someone over the age of 18 must be present for the 2-3 hour installation process. If we leave a message, please call us back right away, because if we are unable to schedule you when we are in the area, it may be months before we are able to return to do your installation. 

We are also very pleased to tell you that we will soon offer phone service to LymeFiber customers – and we should be able to do so beginning in December. The cost for this service is a one-time phone activation fee of $30 plus $25/month for residential service and $35/month per line for businesses (plus applicable taxes). Since this service was not available when you first subscribed for internet, we will waive any additional installation costs if we have to come back to install your phone. If you know you want phone service, please let us know so that we can install the phone at the same time as the internet. E-mail us at support@Lymefiber.net and include the number of lines and the service address. 

In all cases, this is very important: DO NOT contact your existing phone provider about terminating your service with them – or you may lose your current phone number. When we are ready to turn on phone service, WE will contact your existing provider to “port” your number over. 

Thank you again for becoming a LymeFiber customer! We are very excited that high-speed internet is getting turned on in our community, and we thank you for your support.

LymeFiber Update—November 2020 Read More »

We get this question frequently: When will my internet be installed?

Installations will commence at the end of October, and likely stretch at least through the end of April. They will proceed by neighborhoods: our contractor has divided the town into “fiber service areas” that share common infrastructure. As a fiber service area becomes available, the outside plant team will attach the fiber drop to your house, and the support team will work with you to schedule the in-house connection.

LymeFiber Update — October 2020 Read More »

The work of building LymeFiber is moving right along. Here is an update.

We have signed a construction contract with Eustis Cable Enterprises, LTD, of Brookfield, Vermont. This is the company with the bucket trucks and experienced crews who will soon be out on our roads installing the fiber-optic cables. They are well-qualified, having been providing this service to ECFiber for years.

Most of the equipment needed for the project has arrived. This includes the electronics for the network hub and the fiber connectors and other hardware that is used out on the utility poles. The last big item, the fiber-optic cable itself, is scheduled for delivery this month. In the meantime the utilities have completed the make-ready work on the poles. Eustis is ready to begin construction. In fact, they’re already doing preparation work, and you may have seen their trucks with our LymeFiber logo around town.

The construction of the network happens in several phases. First a steel cable, called the strand, is installed from pole to pole along the entire route of the network. When that’s complete, the main fiber-optic cable, called the trunk, is hung from the strand throughout the network. In the next phase the cables from utility poles to each subscriber’s premise get installed. These are called drops. Then system-wide testing makes sure all the splices and connections are good. Finally, an installer visits each subscriber and connects – lights up! – their service. One take-away from all this is that even though you see a Eustis or LymeFiber truck working on the poles in your neighborhood, it may still be a while before your service is active. Nonetheless, we expect the first subscribers to come online in late October, weather permitting.

As we have described before, LymeFiber, LLC, has contracted with ValleyNet to oversee construction of the network and then to be its ongoing operating company. This is the same role they fulfill for the ECFiber network in Vermont. We have already sent our signup list to ValleyNet. Later this month they will be sending out emails or letters to everyone who has signed up for service. One email will be a request for you to confirm your subscription. A second will provide the results of the “drop survey” that was done at your site last fall. This will have all the details about what is required at your site to get the cable from the utility pole to your premise.

We know that some subscribers plan to have their drop run underground through conduit. The job of installing that conduit is the responsibility of the subscriber. To help, we are soliciting the names of contractors who can do this work. If you are such a contractor or you want to suggest one, please send the information to info@lymefiber.net. We will not be evaluating contractors, but we will make the list available to anyone on request. The technical requirements for the conduit are the same as those for ECFiber and are available on their website.

Finally, as LymeFiber becomes a reality, we will be transitioning some resources like our website and some functions like routine communication with subscribers from our initial LymeFiber team to ValleyNet. They are the professionals. But our team, as your neighbors, will still be here.

If you have questions, please contact info@lymefiber.net. Thank you.

LymeFiber Update — June 2020 Read More »

Eversource crews moving electric service to new pole near Post Pond, March 2020

Working closely with our construction and operations partners at ValleyNet, we continue to progress toward installation of LymeFiber in Fall 2020. The process for installation is remarkably complicated, both because of the legal/regulatory requirements plus the amount of work from various entities that must occur:

  • You may have seen various telephone and electric company trucks working on poles in town. This “make ready” process involves teams from those companies preparing the poles and making space for our fiber optic cables. (The image accompanying this note shows Eversource crews moving electric service to a new pole near Post Pond, March 2020.)
  • In parallel, we are obtaining licenses to install the fiber on the poles and across the Connecticut River, ordering the necessary fiber cable, installing the electronics for the network hub, and finalizing the construction agreement with the contractor that will install the fiber.
  • Once all these details are complete, our contractor will begin to install the fiber backbone on the poles along the roads of town. As things stand now, this will begin in June.
  • Finally, once all the electronics are in place and the fiber has been hung on the poles, the LymeFiber crews will begin to install the “drops” that connect the backbone to each home or business.

Delays in obtaining pole access, plus the fact that town roads are now posted for mud season, have put us about four to six weeks behind our original plan. Nonetheless our target is to provide service starting in October.

If you haven’t yet signed up for service, and plan to do so – it would be very helpful for you to SIGN UP NOW. We’ll be contacting subscribers/sign-ups soon to discuss connection details with customers. This will be for planning the sequence of individual hook-up areas. If we get late signups, they may be delayed in getting a connection. If you have questions, please contact info@lymefiber.net. Thank you.

LymeFiber Update — April 2020 Read More »

On Friday, 10 Jan 2020, LymeFiber held a conference call to answer questions from potential bidders for our Request For Proposal (RFP). Here are the responses to those questions:

Q: After reviewing the maps and BOM’s provided, I have come up with the attached Unit counts, does ValleyNet plan on sending out a unit breakdown for missing items from the BOM’s like Down guys, Anchors, Overhead Guys and Bonds so that all bidders are using the same information to complete their bids?
A: No, A per unit cost for these tasks is expected. Some of the information can be pulled from the maps, others won’t show up until you are at the pole.

Q:   There are no bores called out for but it looks like there will be some. Should we put in place holder number for bore unit or will LymeFiber/ValleyNet give us a number to use. 
A: Please use a place holder number for the bore units. VN will not send out a number.

Q: Should we be providing a cost for customer premises installations for the 1014 homes or as a single unit price per home for outside work?
A: Single price for running drop to premises

Q: Should we be providing a cost for the interior customer premise installations for the 1014 homes or as a single unit price per home for inside work?
A: Single price for installation

Q: There are no units for drop placement in conduit provided: do we include a single foot price as a place holder?
A: No drops will be priced per drop aerial or UG with extra price for non-standard drop, standard drops are 400’.

Q: There are no pole sets called out for, should we be providing a unit cost for them as a place holder and if so what class of pole.
A: No poles are planned on this project

Q: Should traffic control be built into the unit pricing or an hourly rate provided to be used as needed. (Billing based on an hourly rate as used will lower cost as opposed to adding to all units in the build.)
A: Would prefer pass through with administrative markup

Q: Should we include single unit pricing for rock bores and rock trenching as place holders; (ie: BM60(R)(Rock Bore), BM60(RR)(Heavy Rock), BM71(Rock Excavating)?
A: Yes

Q: Are any specialty permits a pass thru (Railroad, Highway, Excavating, act.)?
A: Yes

Q&A for RFP Read More »

The LymeFiber project reached an important milestone today when ValleyNet, the non-profit who will build and operate our network, issued a Request for Proposals (RFP, shown below) for construction of the network. This document will be distributed to companies and trade organizations in the fiber-optic field. It specifies all the technical and legal details of the project. Responses to the RFP are due next month. A committee of LymeFiber and ValleyNet experts will review the responses and select a builder.

Companies are being asked for proposals to build a network that consists of about 57 miles of fiber-optic cable throughout the town as well as drops – the connections from the utility poles to the house or business – for over 300 subscribers who signed up for service.

And as always, if you haven’t filled out our no-obligation signup form, click Sign Up Now! at the top of this page.

LymeFiber_Construction_RFP_Final

Can’t open the PDF above? Use this link to download it: https://www.lymefiber.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/LymeFiber_Construction_RFP_Final.pdf

LymeFiber Issues Construction RFP Read More »

Lyme’s own Steve Campbell and ValleyNet’s Carole Monroe were quoted in Saturday’s article about LymeFiber in the Concord Monitor. (The article also appeared on page A2 of Valley News for November 4.) You can read it at: https://www.concordmonitor.com/lyme-nh-fiber-home-internet-29874661

As a reminder, LymeFiber still accepting no-obligation signups. Go to LymeFiber.net, click Sign Up Now. We’ll get back to you for details about connections as we get closer to providing service in Summer 2020.

LymeFiber in the News Read More »

Measuring height of wires above road bed

As of early September, all applications to attach wires to the utility poles in Lyme have been submitted – a total of 1,941 poles. The utility companies are doing their make-ready survey work in teams composed of a contractor from the ValleyNet office, the telephone company, and the electric company. The photo above shows one of the team members measuring the height of the wires. The lowest point must be 18 feet above the roadbed.

In addition, LymeFiber is conducting the pole-to-house survey work mentioned in the postcards we sent out last month. You may see our two contractors, Bob Driscoll and Bill Gragen, going around town. They both have IDs, vests and LymeFiber magnets on the vehicles. They will want to see how to connect to the outside of your house, but will not need to come inside. 

LymeFiber Update – September 2019 Read More »

Steve Campbell sent this note to the Lyme listserv…


Friends, 

The LymeFiber project is moving right along, even if you don’t see our trucks on your road yet (but see below). Here is your August 2019 update. 

The big news is that all the “make-ready” agreements have been signed with the utilities who have wires on the town’s utility poles. Make-ready is the process of moving existing wires on the poles so there’s space for our fiber cables. Having all these agreements in place is a major milestone for any project like ours. You may see utility employees checking out the poles to see what they need to do. 

ValleyNet, the non-profit that built and operates ECFiber in Vermont and will build and operate LymeFiber, has issued a contract for the job of designing our network. This means figuring out exactly how the fiber cables will be strung through the town, where the hubs are, and where the branch points are. The final design is expected next month. 

So far we have more than 250 people who have completed our no-obligation signup form. That represents a substantial proportion of the premises in town and provides important data for the network design. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can still visit www.LymeFiber.net and add your home or business to the growing list. 

Finally, we are about to start the next important stage of the project: visiting each premise in town, whether they’ve signed up for service or not, to see how we would get the fiber cable from the utility pole on the road to the house or business (in the trade these are called “drops”). Is it a simple one-hop run from the pole to the building? Are there intermediate poles between the road and the building? Is there buried conduit? And so forth. Knowing all this means that if and when an installer comes by to connect the service, they’ll know exactly what they’ll be dealing with. The people doing this survey will have LymeFiber identification. Getting this information does not require going into the buildings, but it might mean walking around the yard. To make sure this is OK with the property owners, in the next few days we will be sending postcards to everyone in town announcing the survey and giving them the chance to opt-out if they don’t want the surveyors on their property. Look for those postcards soon. 

Thanks for supporting LymeFiber. As always, if you have questions or ideas to share, contact us at info@LymeFiber.net

Steve Campbell For LymeFiber

LymeFiber Update – August 2019 Read More »

It’s been a while since you saw those “LymeFiber” trucks on the roads in town, and you may be wondering what’s happening with the project. Here’s an update.

Those trucks were doing a pole census – noting the precise location and condition of each of the 2,000 utility poles in Lyme where LymeFiber will need to string the fiber-optic cable. With that census complete they now enter the next phase of the project – a phase that can be the most time-consuming and expensive part of the whole project. And at this point it’s all behind the scenes.

It’s called the make-ready phase. Following rules established by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, LymeFiber LLC negotiates with each utility who owns those poles to make any changes needed so that LymeFiber can add their cable to the poles. In many cases nothing needs to be done, but often the wires need to be relocated on the poles. If the poles are old or damaged, a whole new pole might be needed. 

The timing and cost of this work – yes, LymeFiber pays – has to be negotiated. That’s what they’re working on now. They have agreements in place from Eversource and New Hampshire Electric Coop; they expect to have an agreement soon from Liberty Utilities. However, negotiations with Consolidated Communications, Inc., (CCI) are proving more complex. CCI rightly sees LymeFiber as competition. The good news is that the team at ValleyNet, the construction and operations manager for LymeFiber, has lots of experience dealing with these problems. They are confident that they will eventually get an agreement from CCI. 

Once they have Pole Attachment Agreements from all the utilities, the actual make-ready work on the poles can begin. When that happens, you will again see utility crews working on the poles. The goal is to have all the make-ready work done by the end of this year. Then the comparatively straightforward task of stringing the fiber-optic cables can begin. The timing will depend on the weather; work usually has to stop during mud season. Although we had originally hoped to provide service in Spring 2020, our goal is to start connecting customers in Summer 2020.

We’re grateful to all the people who have supported the project through the no-obligation sign-up. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can still do so at our website at LymeFiber.net

Lyme Fiber Update-June 2019 Read More »