It’s taken longer than Atherton Fiber founder Mike Farmwald had hoped, but crews are going through Atherton these days, talking with homeowners who want fiber-optic internet service, and doing site assessments of individual properties.
The company doing that work is Paxio, a subcontractor to Atherton Fiber.
“They are contacting people who have expressed interest,” said Atherton City Council Member Bill Widmer on Tuesday. “They go to the home, talk with the homeowner, explain about the different options. I had mine done.”
Atherton town staff and the city council’s IT subcommittee also met with Paxio/Open Fiber/Atherton Fiber (the companies involved in the venture), according to Atherton City Manager George Rodericks.
Phillip Clark, CEO of Paxio, on Wednesday said his team intends to meet again with the IT subcommittee on June 20, at which time he hopes to have a better idea of a timeline for the project.
“We expect to present an informal timeline on the 20th,” Clark said. “At that point we’ll have a clearer idea of distribution areas … we want a little more time to have a clear timeline, so everybody has the same timeline.”
Clark said Paxio people will be “out in force” this month to spread awareness” for the project.
“It’s taken longer than expected,” Widmer said. “There were some starts and stops, but I think that the team that is on it now, they seem to know what they are doing … they are very well organized. They will come back later this month or next month with project plans. They are putting down a backbone on major streets. They’ll, essentially, light that up, then start in regional areas where they have the highest number of people interested in doing something.”
Fiber-optic data transmission is a much faster way to use the internet than traditional copper wires. Lasers transmit light through fiber-optic lines at about 10 times the speed — at a minimum — of a signal through a copper wire. Fiber-optics, according to the Atherton Fiber website, could potentially hit a terabyte per second, as compared to copper’s cap at more or less 1.5 megabytes a second.
Atherton Fiber plans to run a fiber to every home in Atherton, using two main ways of connecting — through “a 16:1 or a 32:1 splitter on their way from your house to our central office,” according to the company’s website, or via dedicated fibers that run directly from a home to the Atherton Fiber office.
Atherton Fiber is offering a two-fiber connection to a home for $7,500, or four fibers for $10,000. The fibers will belong to the home, and ownership will transfer to future purchasers of the home.
The highest internet speeds possible will require equipment that is now very expensive, but the Atherton Fiber website speculates that the prices for it will come down. Such a connection would require specialized equipment in the home and in the Atherton Fiber network hub.
The company website is encouraging people to buy the dedicated lines, hoping to get enough people signed on for that service to make undergrounding possible. If that doesn’t work out, utility poles will be used.
“The option to buy fiber must be exercised before construction starts,” Atherton Fiber said. “The extra fibers are part of the design process. After construction begins, we cannot guarantee that fibers will be available to purchase.”
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