Underground Lightning Speed
New Options in Internet Connectivity
By AMANDA PULLIN
F
rom gear to gadgets, most
purchasing decisions on the
Internet seem harder than they
should because of endless options
– sellers and deals abound. There
is a notable exception: selecting
an Internet provider so you can
get on the Internet.
James
Benham,
College
Station City Council Member
Place 6, kicked off an effort in
2015 by sending out requests for
interest to dozens of providers to
gauge interest in providing more
Internet options in the city. What
he found were several companies
ready to take steps to bring faster
bandwidth to College Station.
In order to make it happen,
the City of College Station was
willing to lease out the dark
fiber that loops around the town,
explains Benham. A company
called WireStar, Inc. now leases
the previously unused fiber from
the city to provide businesses
with high speed Internet. A lease
was signed in October that ties
WireStar to the fiber for 10 years.
The fiber was originally laid
for communication between
fire and police stations leaving
a great deal of fiber unused.
Benham and his colleagues on
the council saw an opportunity
and introduced the idea of leasing
out the city’s fiber to provide
higher bandwidth. According to
Benham, with the fiber already in
place, there was no need to invest
hundreds of thousands of dollars
to build and bury fiber. This
allowed WireStar to immediately
provide high-speed service to
business customers.
Benham
was
recently
interviewed in a podcast
with City of College Station
Communications Director Jay
Socol to explain the in’s and out’s
12
INSITE January 2016
of the ultra high-speed Internet.
To put it into perspective,
Benham explains that a gigabit
is equal to one billion bits per
second. This translates to a
full season of “House of Cards”
downloading onto a device in
about 10 minutes – an extremely
rapid speed.
With this new bandwidth,
businesses will be able to better
help customers. This creates a
base for more economic structure
in the area, including better and
more productive services. “A
healthy city provides healthy
businesses,”
says
Benham.
“It’s the city’s responsibility
to create an environment for
infrastructure.”
Benham says has been
working to bring in an Internet
competitor since he was first
elected in 2012 and is excited
that the call for more bandwidth
has finally been answered.
Kyle Leissner, president of
WireStar, says the company has
had great response from large
and small businesses for faster
bandwidth, as well as heaps
of positive feedback from the
city and other businesses and
vendors in the field.
“With this new option for
current, and especially potential
new large businesses to the
College Station area, we feel that
we will remove any inhibitions
about growth in regards to
communication infrastructure,”
says Leissner. “Fiber optic cable
can support almost unlimited
speeds.”
The faster speeds don’t come
with a steep increase in price;
WireStar’s new service is cheaper
than other options in the area.
Benham says that per megabyte,
the bandwidth is relatively
inexpensive.
WireStar is currently serving
apartment complexes and hotel
management companies in the
College Station area, [