BerryComm nears completion of 55

Local fiber internet service provider BerryComm is nearing completion of its 55-mile fiber optic ring.

The multimillion dollar project is expected to be complete Sept. 22, Corey Childs, president of BerryComm told the Howard County Commissioners on Aug. 21.

This map shows where BerryComm will build the 55-mile fiberoptic ring throughout Howard County.

“We’re excited to be toward the tail end of this,” Childs said, adding that interest in the company’s fiber internet has been “high.”

Childs said BerryComm has invested $3 million into the installation of the fiber ring. That becomes $4 million if you include buildout to residences near the ring. Howard County, through its READI grant money, has invested an additional $1 million for the ring buildout.

Once complete, the ring will serve as the base for buildout of the fiber optic network to address the low broadband availability that has impacted many rural residents in Howard County, offering up to 1-gig speeds to residents and beyond-1-gig speeds to schools, health care facilities and businesses that require dedicated bandwidth.

In March, the internet service provider celebrated its first customers on the fiber network.

One of the initial customers, Mast Farms, told the Tribune in April the new internet has fundamentally changed farm operations. Previously, the family was getting just a few Mbps up and down, but now it gets speeds between 600-700 Mbps up and down.

While the fiber ring is nearly complete, the task of expanding high speed internet access to underserved and unserved customers is really just beginning.

Childs said BerryComm in the upcoming years will continue to go after state and federal grants to help expand fiber access from the ring to all directions. On the horizon is $80 million in round four of the Next Level Connections funds. That money will start being awarded next year.

Currently, the company is reaching out and offering services to residences within 1,000 feet of the fiber ring.

“The idea is to continue to push into all the edges and then also inward,” Childs said. “This project is focused on rural Howard County. Ultimately, we want to serve all the unserved. Then eventually push further into town.”

If you are underserved or unserved, BerryComm encourages you to visit www.connectingindiana.com and complete the speed test on the website or complete the survey on the website to report that you have no broadband at your residence. Broadband internet is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as speeds of 25 Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

Information gleaned from the speed test and surveys will give the state information as to where broadband gaps are and where the state should award grants.

According to the state’s broadband map, 57.2% of Howard County has broadband, with 35.5% underserved and 7.2% unserved. The county’s most rural areas — the northwest and northeast — have the highest concentration of underserved and unserved residents.

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich.

Stuck with slow and occasionally unreliable mobile broadband internet, it often took Mast Farms 45 minutes to upload or download any farm data.

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