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Date: 7/26/2021
HOLYOKE – Holyoke Gas and Electric (HG&E) is continuing their journey to explore offering residents a municipal internet service.
HG&E’s Director of Marketing and Communication Kate Sullivan Craven said the company had been following and watching the market for municipal internet for many years prior to the pandemic.
“As a municipal utility we have the benefit and are unique in that we can make decisions based on our rate payers. We all have different types of communities, [but] when Westfield rolled out their fiber network it’s something we began to watch very closely,” she said.
However, she said as Whip City Fiber began to grow, they began to do “more and more outside their footprint.” Sullivan Craven said HG&E began to explore what a municipal fiber service would look like for Holyoke residents. “The conversation about municipal fiber has been well known throughout the region. We worked on what this would look like to Holyoke residents, the infrastructure to the home,” she said.
The infrastructure to build a municipal fiber network, she explained, was the biggest obstacle when establishing municipal fiber, as the construction of the network was expensive. “It would be like $30 million, so we need to make sure that as we move forward this won’t impact gas and utility customers. So if we have 1,000 customers interested, 18,000 customers won’t be paying [for the cost of internet]. We’re being very careful and intentional,” she said.
However, when the pandemic affected the Western Massachusetts area, she said the conversation around internet and the necessity of it changed. “It doesn’t seem like there’s a right time because of the cost of services, however, we hit a point with the pandemic where internet became really a more important service for remote learning and working from home,” she said. “We felt like it was a good time, maybe people understood more. We thought it was a good time where the customer base understood what we were asking.”
HG&E then launched a customer interest survey to allow those interested in paying for municipal internet to express their interest and for them to answer any questions residents may have related to the service. While HG&E closed the survey on July 16, Sullivan Craven said the form would remain live on their website while they began collecting and compiling the data they had received thus far. “So far we’ve seen about 1,000 interest forms come in, and they seem to still be trickling in,” she said.
Sullivan Craven said while she didn’t “want to speculate on data too soon,” the survey had been set up to test the market of those interested. “We wanted to see who would seem interested in the product,” she said. Sullivan Craven went on to say that they would be doing “a deep dive” into the data.
This, she said, would tell them “where is the data coming from,” which neighborhoods are interested in municipal fiber and if there were any “pockets where we can do a pilot.” She said, “We’re going to look at what the potential take rate would be and what customers would be willing to pay. Analyze that with the $30 million investment and see if it makes sense to move forward with the service.”
The data, she explained, would be compiled into a report that would likely be published in the fall. Additionally, she explained that HG&E was looking into funding options to help offset the cost of constructing the network. Such options included applying for grants and funding opportunities through various organizations and municipal programs. She added that HG&E had received $3.5 million for infrastructure work and to fund a pilot program.
“Any additional funding would help. There’s quite a few things at play, we feel it was most important to determine this was something customers wanted before we move into this potential service,” she said.
Sullivan Craven said they had begun having conversations with both the City Council and Acting Mayor Terrance Sullivan. “We have had many conversations with the City Council and Mayor Murphy since he came on explaining our position and making the best decision for the rate payers in Holyoke,” she said. “We’re proceeding with caution, but getting this analysis done to see where interest lies and who would adopt this service.”
Sullivan Craven emphasized that those who had questions or wanted to express interest in the service should visit their website and fill out the survey at https://www.hged.com/telecom/fiber-to-the-home-interest/default.aspx.
“We have had some really good conversations with customers who have had some really good questions. It’s a really good learning experience for the community,” she said.