Spencer Municipal Utilities Expanding FTTH Construction

SPENCER, IA — Spencer Municipal Utilities has awarded a contract that will allow it to continue to expand fiber to the home communication services throughout the city. A current fiber project that will serve approximately 700 customers is finishing up and work will begin early this fall on an approximate $4.5 million project for nearly 2,000 additional homes and businesses in Spencer.

Fiber to the home is the delivery of a communications signal over optical fiber from SMU’s switching equipment all the way to the service address.
“Just like Internet service has evolved from dial-up to digital service lines (DSL) and cable modem, fiber will give customers the next level of service to continue to improve the way they live, work and play and we are continuing to build out this service throughout the community of Spencer,” says Amanda Gloyd, marketing and community relations manager.

This new method of delivering services will replace the existing copper infrastructure such as telephone wires and coaxial cable. SMU started constructing the communications utility in 1999 and began offering service to customers in the fall of 2000.

Customer Bandwidth Usage on the Rise
“This will provide higher bandwidth to customers which will enable customers to experience video, Internet and voice services beyond our already reliable services,” adds Gloyd. "Since SMU first began offering Internet service to customers the amount used by customers has increased and we expect to see that continue. For example, the average peak usage from customers in the fall of 2010 was 125 Mbps and today it averages around 800 Mbps with maximums over 1,200 Mbps. The project to convert the whole town of Spencer will take several years and we continue to develop plans for future projects."

Spencer Municipal Utilities is a provider of cable, Internet, telephone and iWireless cellular service in the Spencer community and has been providing water since 1886 and electric services since 1901.