Archtop Fiber, the fiber-optic provider headquartered at iPark 87, says it will soon bring service to Woodstock. Woodstock will lease a small space in its town hall to the firm and will receive free Internet at town offices and a WiFi hotspot at a public gathering spot.
Archtop needs to install equipment racks to provide Internet and phone services to customers. A four-square-foot space in the back of the town hall behind the police station will do just fine.
“We opened the closet. It was sort of charming, actually,” said Archtop chief development officer Shawn Beqaj. “We opened the door, and there were cobwebs and some old glasses and sort of crates of things. And we thought, well, this is perfect.”
The area on the outside of the building will only be accessible to Archtop personnel, who would not have access to the rest of the building.
Archtop provides up to ten-gigabit Internet service. Prices start at $69.99 per month for one gigabit.
Beqaj said the network tends to stay on-line during power outages. Archtop’s fiber-optic cable transmits light and only requires power at the central equipment rack and at the router in the home or point of service. A battery backup system, or uninterruptible power supply (UPS), will supply power for long enough to bring a generator on site — typically only needed during a prolonged power failure, such as after a natural disaster.
Archtop sees itself as providing more reliable service than Spectrum, its main competitor
“Nobody’s happy when there’s an electric outage, but we tend to be the last one to go down, first one to come back up,” Beqaj claimed.
The town could enter a separate agreement allowing Archtop to tap into the existing generator that services the town hall. Archtop would compensate the town for use of the generator when it is needed.
Beqaj said he would be amenable to such a deal.
Archtop’s footprint reaches as far north as the Albany suburbs, as far south as Warwick in Orange County, and west to Hancock in western Delaware County.
“We’re constructing in Ulster and Kingston and Saugerties and Rhinebeck and all over,” said Beqaj. “We have roughly 3000 miles of fiber to build. It’s an approximately $300-million project. The company has scaled back its initial promises of a faster timeline in Ulster County.
Beqaj said the biggest hurdle has been the permitting process to string fiber on Central Hudson poles. Where possible, Archtop has been able to bury its cable in a narrow trench along road right-of-ways. In many areas, however, utility poles have had to be used.
“The single biggest gating factor is permits to what we call make-ready to be on the Central Hudson poles,” Beqaj said.
Archtop will be able to serve the center of Woodstock very quickly. There are fewer hurdles in areas where Archtop can run fiber underground. It has certification to use state highway rights-of-way.
Getting access to the poles is another story. “We don’t have all those permits. Some of those permits have been in process for more than 300 days,” Beqaj said.
Still to be discussed is the installation of a public WiFi hotspot Archtop is offering to install in a gathering spot. Town supervisor Bill McKenna has suggested the village green or Andy Lee Field.
Archtop would provide free hotspot access in exchange for showing a loading page advertising Internet services available to residents.
On August 13, the town board unanimously authorized McKenna to sign the lease for Archtop’s equipment rack. The lease of town property is subject to permissive referendum. A resident can petition for a townwide vote on the matter within the next 30 days. If no petition is submitted, the lease will be in effect.
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