Troy gives update of broadband service

Talk about it

The town of Troy Board announced at its meeting, Thursday, Dec. 9, that it hopes to have broadband implemented throughout the town by late fall or early winter 2011.

As has been reported in the past, Troy has been granted $4.5 million to bring fiber-optic broadband service to every home in the town with the help of the Baldwin Telecom Inc. (BTI) group. There will be no cost to the citizens of bringing the fiber optic cables right up to and into their homes, with one caveat; the homes must be prepped for the cabling prior to the cables being laid.

The “pre-work” to the homes will not be paid for by the stimulus grant, and must be completed by May 2011 in order to receive free broadband. The pre-work for the installation includes drilling a hole in the outside of the home for the cable to run though, installing wall mounts for signal converter boxes (the boxes will be provided free) and an open 110-outlet.

Interested citizens can see what this would look like at the town hall. A display has a mock-up, complete with converter boxes, cables, outlets, and other equipment for viewing. Along with the display, information will be forthcoming on the town of Troy website, and the BTI website in January. If pre-work is not completed, the cables will be buried next to the property, and will be run to the home, at a cost to the homeowner, should they later decide to change their minds and have access to the fiber optic service.

Park Board

Park Board Chair Jill Berke presented the monthly Park Board report to the board providing updates to recent issues. Berke reports that a lawn care contract has been finalized for the 2011 season with Lawn Barbers Lawn Care. The town will be billed monthly for services rendered, which include but are not limited to lawn mowing at Glover Park, the recycling center, and the town hall. All services are not to exceed $10,600.

Along with the lawn contract, after years of discussion, the town has also signed an official ball field contract with the Hudson and River Falls youth baseball leagues. This will not entail any major changes to ball field use, as the town has honored the “spirit of the contract” for the past few years.

Town Chair Ray Knapp finished by saying, “I would like to publicly thank, on behalf of the town board, both Jill Berke and Charlie MacDonell (Park Board vice chair) for all of their hard work and service to the town.”

Tags: communities, troy, technology