Southern Indiana Business Report
BEDFORD – Building on its existing commercial presence, Smithville announced a new residential multi-gigabit-capable fiber project in the city of Bedford Nov. 1, according to Darby A. McCarty, Smithville chairman and CEO. The new project will include future capacity for Smithville’s forthcoming multi-gigabit service for homes.
“We’ve been pleased to support area Bedford businesses and healthcare providers with our high-speed fiber service for several years,” said McCarty. “Now we’re pleased to launch our nationally recognized fiber broadband service to enrich the lives of Bedford residents even further.”
Smithville high-speed fiber features symmetrical gigabit (1,000 Mbps) for download and upload speeds. The new residential network built in Bedford will offer options for even higher gigabit speeds. The Bedford project is part of Smithville’s continuing $10 million private investment in new rural fiber services during 2023, according to Paul Quick, Smithville president.
“Smithville has been a strong supporter of Bedford and the region for many years with commercial fiber service for our manufacturing, healthcare, and other businesses in the region,” said Bedford Mayor Sam Craig. “We appreciate that a Hoosier-owned national top 100 broadband company is taking advantage of our Broadband Ready Community designation and now bringing its high-speed connectivity to area Bedford residents.”
“Smithville has been a longtime partner and provider of services to our business community; we are excited to see the same quality of service expanding to our residents,” noted Shance Sizemore, CEO of the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council. “Smithville’s new symmetrical gigabit service for Bedford homes will help elevate the quality of life for Bedford residents.”
300 homes in 14th Street area
The first phase of the planned Smithville fiber project will make high-speed connectivity available to about 300 homes in Bedford in the 14th Street area, and potentially expand north and west to additional homes later.
The design phase is complete, and Smithville expects to begin lighting up the new residential network with fiber residential service in late 2023 and early 2024. In addition to fast fiber internet, Smithville has curated a whole-home experience, including Wi-Fi, video doorbells, cameras, and other smart home technology offerings.
“In part because of its importance to the nearby Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane and the fact that so many of its residents work there, Bedford and Lawrence County has always been considered an important region by Smithville,” explained Cullen McCarty, executive vice president of Smithville. “As Crane builds its workforce to support microelectronics, hypersonics, and other technology growth, this makes fiber availability vital.”
Since being among the first to deploy commercial fiber developments in the early 1990s, Smithville has actively made more than a quarter of a billion dollars of private investments in constructing fiber networks for Hoosier homes, businesses, educational institutions, hospitals, cities, and more.
Cullen McCarty added: “We have additional projects that we’re considering or are already in the design phase – we remain committed to state-of-the-art fiber builds and the deployment of smart technology to power residential and commercial fiber.”
Fiber expanding in Greene, Owen counties
In addition to Bedford, new fiber networks under construction by Smithville in 2023 include areas north, east, west, and southwest of Bloomington. These include areas in southeast Greene County, the Stanford area southwest of Bloomington, the Indian Hills region in the Gosport area of Owen County, western Monroe County, and more. More than 1,000 homes and businesses in these rural areas now have or soon will have high-speed fiber connectivity, according to Quick.
“Our experienced Bedford-based construction partner, Lineal, is already at work, and we look forward to connecting the Limestone Capital of the World — to the world,” Quick continued.
Casey Smith, superintendent of Outside Plant for Smithville, regularly provides fiber construction video updates on social media. Residents and businesses in the first phase of the Bedford project can claim their fast fiber connection by visiting Smithville.com/internet. People interested in exploring fiber or other services in the Smithville area can check online at Smithville.com/StatusMap.