By Byron Higgin
County Correspondent
Saturating Lyon County with broadband service is a goal of the Lyon County Board.
As a result, the board hired an engineering firm to study the need for greater broadband services.
“We’ve done all our work on the study,” said Doug Dawson of Finley Engineering CCG Consulting of Slayton.
“We know the county’s goal is eventually to have fiber everywhere.”
“The reason you’re hiring us is because many areas of the county don’t have fiber in rural areas. The county is typical of many rural counties where a substantial part of the county has or will soon have good broadband, including fiber, while other parts of the county have little or no broadband,” Dawson added.
He said his firm has studied Green Valley, Cottonwood, Amiret and Florence. “We also looked at scenarios to build fiber in Balaton and Lynd. These are areas where broadband isn’t available to everyone.”
“Those rural customers in the southwest service area is a worst-case scenario,” said Chris Konechne, project engineer for Finley Engineering.
He indicated, “We would construct a 66-mile long backbone cover for the service area.”
“There are 811 miles of roads that would need fiber (including 66 miles of backbone fiber.)”
“While it’s cost effective to bury the cables, the whole network could be placed on rural poles,” Dawson said. However, the study suggested the burying of the cables.
For more on this article, see this week’s Headlight-Herald.