Town of Kingston OKs deal with Archtop Fiber for high

TOWN OF KINGSTON, N.Y. — Town Board members have agreed to join with neighboring municipalities in supporting Archtop Fiber’s efforts to develop a core fiber optics network in remote areas that cable company Spectrum doesn’t cover, while at the same time providing higher internet speeds.

Councilman Larry Queipo said during a meeting Monday said that under the development agreement, Archtop Fiber will use money from investors to help get lines to remote homes.

“According to them, they will cover all of that,” he said. “They are being self-financed and they will cover all of that. That’s the reason for the (memorandum of understanding), so the grant covers all that.”

The resolution locks the town into providing funds exclusively to Archtop for successful grant applications.

Under the agreement, Archtop Fiber would assist the town in securing “public funding from all available sources” as long as “all funding which the town derives from this joint effort is dedicated to the maximum extent legally permissible to support infrastructure within portions of the town for Archtop to provide broadband internet service.”

Officials in the resolution, which was written by Archtop but modified by the town’s attorney, noted that there are overlapping state and federal programs designed to provide internet access in rural areas. The agencies that are expected to be approached for funding include the Federal Communications Commission, Rural Utility Services, U.S. Department of Commerce, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

The resolution also calls for the town to “waive all permit and inspection fees required for the initial construction of the system in the town, on town property, and rights-of-ways to facilitate the project.”

Town obligations would further call for an update of municipal “road and right-of-way design standards … to add standards for communications conduit installation for existing and all future planned subdivisions thus allowing the installation of future backbone on town property and rights-of-ways without the need for street cutting.”

Archtop Fiber plans to have internet speeds of up to 10 gigabytes per second and have a battery backup for equipment in the event of power outages.

Queipo noted that Archtop Fiber plans to have internet service at $69 per month, which would include telephone capability, but television would have to come via a streaming provider.

Archtop Fiber officials in February said plans for fiber optic cable for nearly 140,000 connections over 2,508 miles are to be funded with about $250 million from private investors.

Under a plan that was initially presented to the town of Ulster last year, the company said it plans to create a loop that extends north from its headquarters at iPark 87 to Catskill, cross the Hudson River and go south to the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge.

Company representatives say there is an additional $100 million available for them to establish systems in other communities that won’t be part of the core system.

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