We continue to make great progress connecting homes and businesses to fiber in our territory. As of last month, we have connected over1,000 homes which are now experiencing the benefits of fiber internet speeds that are capable of up to 1Gbps. With over 7,000 more homes to convert, we still have a lot of work ahead. We are currently converting 30-50 homes per week. Fiber fed facilities are now in every part of Chesterfield County and every day we are extending our network further. Our goal continues to be to reach every home in our service area and we are working hard towards that goal.
Because we are a cooperative, we do not focus on profits like other companies. 100 percent of your dollars is reinvested back into our community through adding more fiber, additional services and of course, returning some as capital credits to help boost the local economy. No other providers of telecom services in our area can say that.
Secondly, we are building a network that will ultimately be better than what you would get in Charlotte or other large areas. We have added multiple points of redundancy so that when we do experience problems or outages fewer homes are affected. Even during power outages, our battery backup systems will keep your phone service up and running up to 8 hours or more. Our fiber optic cable is buried in the ground and not hung on poles, keeping you connected during ice storms and hurricanes.
Lastly, we’ve added extra capacity to our system to ensure that you have a good experience no matter how many customers may be online at any given time. With the increase in the use of streaming services, we’ve teamed up with Netflix and installed two dedicated Netflix streaming servers onto our network to improve your experience. When our members stream Netflix they are streaming locally instead of from a server far away. All of these improvements are designed so that as your needs grow, we will already be prepared.
Coming up in 2020, we are working on new Whole Home Wi-Fi service offerings allowing customers to manage devices on their home network. While broadband and Wi-Fi are different, Wi-Fi service has become just as important now as your hardwired broadband connection. Some of our customers already have Wi-Fi extenders in their homes to extend the reach and strength of the Wi-Fi as more devices are being connected in homes. The need for additional devices is growing and we’re ready for it. If you are in need of Wi-Fi extenders due to the size of your home, or the number of connected devices, please contact us at 843-658-3434. We’re here to help!
Lee Chambers CEO / General Manager