Old-tech garage to launch future-tech ring
The Ontario County Board of Supervisors Thursday approved leasing a portion of the former county highway garage on Saltonstall Street to be the staging area for a $7.5 million project that will string 180 miles of fiber-optic cable around the county.
Finger Lakes Regional Telecommunications Development Corp. will pay the county $1,000 a year rent plus a share of utility costs to use offices, vehicle bays and meeting space under the two-year agreement. The corporation will also pay for maintenance and cleaning of the building that the county still uses for storing some vehicles.
Earlier this year, the county moved its highway operations into a new highway/bus garage in Hopewell.
The corporation contracted with Syracuse Utilities to install the cable that will be placed largely along telephone poles.
County Chief Information Officer Ed Hemminger, who heads the not-for-profit development corporation, said the actual stringing of the fiber will begin in early 2008. Don Paul, an estimator with Syracuse Utilities, said that while they set up shop on Saltonstall Street, utility companies will prepare poles to take the fiber.
The fiber-optic ring will be installed in stages, with Canandaigua, Victor, and Geneva on the first 40-mile leg. The goal is to eventually connect all regions of the county to affordable, high-speed Internet access. The entire system should be up and running by the end of 2009.
Hemminger said in an e-mail before leaving on vacation that details on the specific route of the ring and how customers can access the broadband capacity will be presented at events to be scheduled within the next two months.
It will work like this: Telecommunications companies will contract with the corporation to lease the fiber and provide services to customers. Marketing of the project is well under way, said Hemminger, with specifics still being worked out as to how customers and telecommunication companies will sign on.
Construction of the ring is being covered largely through payments from Empire State Pipeline, a company building a natural-gas pipeline through Ontario and several other counties. Empire is helping to defray the cost of a bond issue used to finance building the ring to the tune of $5 million.
Last year, Ontario County approved giving $2.5 million in the form of a loan and a prepayment for the county's own use of the ring. Also Thursday, an additional $1 million was pumped into the project by Casella Waste Systems Inc. The payment is part of changes to a lease agreement between the county and Casella. The ring will pay for itself once it is up and running, according to the plan.
Contact Julie Sherwood at (585) 394-0770, Ext. 263, or at jsherwood@mpnewspapers.com