Gigabit service to break ground in Centennial

Canada-based Ting is bringing what residents voted for in 2013.

Construction begins next week in Centennial on a service that will ultimately bring what many in Colorado have voted for: fast internet from someone other than the local cable TV or telephone provider.

Ting Internet, based in Canada, has been working with the city for more than a year to study whether the community was a good place to offer gigabit internet service. Ting already offers gigabit service in parts of Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.

Centennial residents voted in 2013 to opt out of Senate Bill 152, a state law that prevents municipalities from offering internet service. As of November, more than 100 cities and counties have voted to abandon the law.

On Thursday, Ting said Willow Creek 1 and 2 subdivisions — two neighborhoods near East Dry Creek Road and Yosemite Street — will be the first to get its gigabit internet service. For those who sign up now, service could start in the spring, said Monica Webb, who handles Ting’s government relations.

“We anticipate to light up our first customers in spring of 2018,” she said. “Since Willow Creek is our first neighborhood, we’ll be a bit slower to light up customers than in subsequent neighborhoods where they’ll be able to sign up for service in just a couple months after construction.”

Future neighborhoods are determined by the number of pre-orders, the ease of working with a neighborhood’s homeowners association and the proximity to the city’s internet backbone, which branches out from the city municipal building. Future fiber lines run along East Dry Creek, East Arapahoe and East County Line roads.

“We plan to announce our next phase of construction in the first quarter of 2018,” Webb said.

Ting would connect homes and businesses to the city’s main pipe and then manage internet service, which starts at $19 a month for 5 megabits per second. The gigabit plan is $89 a month. For those who pre-order, the $199 installation fee is waived. Customers can also buy an internet box for $199 or rent one for $9 a month.

Centennial is further along than most of the more than 100 cities and counties that have voted to opt out of the law.

But Longmont is still the leader, having launched its gigabit service a few years ago. The service, managed by the city-owned NextLight, is still being built out but is available to the majori- ty of residents and businesses, with about 53 percent of Longmont’s population using the service, Longmont Power & Communications spokesman Scott Rochat said in November.

Several other cities in the state have moved past researching municipal broadband. For example, Wray is putting in a 14-mile fiber backbone and letting the Plains Cooperative Telephone Association handle the last mile to offer broadband to homes.