I want to thank the folks from Lake County for the update on their fiber project…

Construction, engineering and installation crews are working diligently to bring high-speed broadband services to underserved areas of Lake and eastern St. Louis Counties.  Crews are installing fiber and completing drops daily, working toward the timeline goals for a June 30/September 30 completion. With warmer weather upon us, frost out of the ground and longer days, constructions crews should exceed mileage for daily construction.

The biggest goal throughout this project has been to provide fiber-optic broadband access to rural, underserved areas of these counties.  With a project of this breadth there are bound to be obstacles. While project leadership has been proactive with communicating concerns, these unforeseen issues have caused the project significant delay. Project leadership is working to ensure these high-demand services are delivered to all project communities and townships.

While we are reliant on the construction crews for management to complete these routes on time and on-budget, we are hopeful the progress we have seen this spring will carry through the next months to maintain our timeline.  Lake County and project leadership cannot comment on the implications if these timelines are not met, that would be better directed to the federal agency that provides funding for the broadband project, the Rural Utility Service.

Lake Connections continues to receive applications for service throughout the project territories daily.