'Gigabit' Work Moves Forward

Work continued last week on a project that will give local residents and businesses access to Gigabit Internet.

According to Lee Good of TeleSystem Services (TSS), Dustin Laughrey, Jason Good, Shane Good, as well as a several helpful residents along 1st Street in Whitehall pitched in Friday to help install a 3,000 foot 12 fiber cable from near the Flower Shop, all the way to the head end located in the Old Cheese Factory.

Good said three other fiber cables were installed Saturday before it rained, adding a couple additional cables would be installed in the near future as well as connecting houses along the route. He said The 12 fiber cable can connect up to 12 houses or businesses on the block where the Flower Shop is located.

The project will provide Internet speeds of 1,000 megabits per second, about 250 times faster than the typical local connection.

Good added the cables must be connected to the equipment at both ends and then tested before they can be activated.

"The project is getting very close to being operational and making Whitehall a 'Gigabit' community," he said.

In an interview last year, Good said fiber optics is the 'state of the art' in Internet delivery.

"It is essentially 'future proof' as the speeds can be increased for the future by simply changing the equipment on both ends of the fiber," he said.