Tony London
Construction should begin within the next three months to install high-speed broadband in almost every rural area of Bartholomew County.
It will take about two-and-a-half years to complete the installation of fiber-optic lines to 11,845 homes in remote locations, Bartholomew County Commissioner Tony London said.
“It won’t take long because they are going to start hooking people up just as soon as they start digging,” said London, who also chairs the Bartholomew County Broadband Initiative Committee.
Tentative timelines can now be set for the high-speed broadband expansion after the three county commissioners unanimously voted Monday to begin negotiating a contract with Meridiam Infrastructure North America Corp. of New York City.
The commissioners choose Meridiam over AT&T Internet Services after examining bids submitted from both companies that were opened Dec. 20. All bidders were asked to provide a service level of 1,000 megabits per second, also known as gig speed, London said.
Meridiam, a infrastructure investment company, will put about $33 million into the project while the county will add $4 million from its federal American Rescue Plan allotment. The federal funds are meant to expand fiber lines to remote homes where it’s not financially viable for a private firm to do it themselves, London said.
The choice of Meridiam was made by a team of experts who evaluated both bids on a criteria of affordability, readiness and overall community impact, project consultant Scott Rudd said. Now an independent consultant in Brown County, Rudd served over three years as director of broadband opportunities for Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch.
But the responsibility of laying the cable goes to Mainstream Fiber Networks of Nashville, Indiana, Rudd said. Owned by Information Technology consultant Bryan Gabriel of Columbus, Mainstream describes itself as Indiana’s first community-focused 100% fiber optic internet provider. The company currently operates in 10 Hoosier counties.
Since each bid was highly technical and more than 100 pages long, the county contracted with Rudd last December to use his expertise to compare them in layman’s terms to a scoring group that came up with the actual recommendation, Rudd said.
“These are both very good proposals, and any county in the state would love to have either (bid),” Rudd told the commissioners. “But from the scoring team’s perspective, one provided a larger community impact in investment, and that is Meridiam.”
For example, the Meridiam proposal would reach 3,993 more rural homes than AT&T. It would cover 88% of unincorporated Bartholomew County, compared to 59% in the AT&T bid, London said. In terms of land coverage, Meridiam would provide fiber optics to 65,489 rural acres, compared to 17,058 acres from AT&T, he added.
The quality of service is equal in both proposals, London said.
