A polar vortex blew through the U.S. earlier this month, and the bitter cold winds put a temporary halt to Point Broadband’s fiber optic cable installation.
Although they did not reach the Grand Traverse Lighthouse at the end of the Leelanau Peninsula by New Year’s as planned, Point Broadband is still determined to work through the snow and finish the network buildout north of Northport.
They plan to move south in the spring and mop up some areas in Elmwood and Bingham townships. The remaining portions of the project are geographically large, representing about 20% of the fiber network, but contain just a few hundred “unserved and underserved” potential customers.
Then Point Broadband’s project will be complete. Leelanau County originally contracted them for $5 million – mostly in American Rescue Plan Act funds – to reach unserved homes in the county by 2024.
Due to various delays – including negotiations with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, difficulty securing permits, and internal changes at Point Broadband – the goalpost was pushed back to this spring.
“Existing infrastructure had to adapt the volume of build that’s taking place,” Point Broadband CEO Todd Holt said. “Broadband grants are fantastic ideas, but you don’t always foresee some of the issues you create, and you have to solve those on the fly.” Holt flew in from Denver last week to meet with county board of commissioners Chairman Steve Yoder, Vice Chairman Ty Wessell, Interim Administrator Richard Lewis, and several others, as all parties seek to wrap up this project. He answered some questions from the newspaper after the meeting.
Right now, the main obstacles are the extreme weather conditions and getting permits from the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) for north Leelanau County. Parts of the network’s northernmost cabinet are designated “critical dune areas” by EGLE. Point Broadband must meet special engineering requirements meant to protect these coastal dunes.
Holt said that Point Broadband’s project is part of a larger push to bring high speed internet to unserved areas throughout the entire country. However, Holt said that both his company and other internet service providers have run into diffi culties with various forms of permitting. In Leelanau County, it was permits for “critical dunes”; elsewhere, it may be permits for railroad crossings.
Nick Diponzio, Point Broadband’s chief construction officer, also noted that the Grand Traverse Lighthouse is owned by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and they are applying for permits from them as well.
Over the past couple weeks, temperatures have gone from above freezing to almost zero degrees Celsius. Most of the Point Broadband’s remaining fiber needs to be laid underground, but the weather does not always permit that. Diponzio said that Point Broadband contacts the county road commission at 5 a.m. to determine whether they’ll be able to work that day or not.
Regarding customer satisfaction, Holt said that their service has noticeably improved since this time last year. Previously, early adopters of the service – including Chairman Yoder – were experiencing frequent outages. According to Holt, these were fixed through secondary redundant circuits in early 2024.
“Even though it’s taken longer than we anticipated – and that’s not unusual with the construction of anything — we’ve gained an appreciation for how everyone here values the biggest asset they have, which is the community,” Holt said.
