Newberry City Council and WCFIBER celebrated the completion of the city’s fiber network, which gives City of Newberry residents the option of faster internet speeds. From left to right: Carter Burton (installation technician, WCFIBER), Councilman Edwin Wicker, Mayor Foster Senn, Councilman Lemont Glasgow and Councilman David Force.
NEWBERRY — The City of Newberry has officially completed work on the new fiber network.
The completion now gives City of Newberry residents the option of internet up to one gigabyte per second.
About 13 months ago the City of Newberry began working on this project and partnered with WCFIBER to provide this service to city residents, through a public/private partnership.
Assistant Utility Director David Eldridge said the network was basically complete at the end of May, and all together took a year and a month. He said the reasons for the extra month were rain delays and cleaning up “punch list” items.
With the completion of the network, 162 miles of fiber was installed in 13 months – to give reference of how long that is, the distance from Newberry to Charleston is about 150 miles.
City Manager Matt DeWitt said the City of Newberry is in a rare group of “Gig Cities” in South Carolina.
“Thanks to the installation of the city’s new fiber system, the City of Newberry can now claim to be one of the few ‘Gig Cities’ in the entire state,” said DeWitt. “This addition will encourage more businesses to consider Newberry as a viable location, which will help create more jobs and viable opportunities right here at home.”
Mayor Foster Senn said while this would be a good project at any time, it was especially prudent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Many people are working at home, students taking classes online, individuals are just enjoying the offerings on the Internet and fast internet helps in each of those situations,” he said.
Reach Andrew Wigger @ 803-276-0625 ext. 1867 or on Twitter @TheNBOnews.