DAN HOWARD
Daniel Howard, General Manager, WG+E and WCF
First, a big thank you to Patrick Berry and his staff for the opportunity to bring topics of interest about Westfield Gas + Electric and Whip City Fiber to the community.
Westfield is excited about Whip City Fiber. Why? It’s the fastest internet service around and comes with the same great customer service that supports Westfield Gas + Electric. It’s also a great tool for advancing economic stimulus and increasing property values that will benefit
everyone who lives and works here.
Over the past 20 years, Westfield Gas + Electric has built and maintained a fiber optic network throughout Westfield to provide internet service to all municipal departments and schools as well as many commercial customers. In April of 2015, with the support of the Municipal Light Board, we moved forward with an initial pilot, bringing high-speed internet service to residential and smaller commercial customers. We launched Whip City Fiber to an area that would challenge us with various types of overhead and underground installations and varying
demographics. Success in the pilot proved that we could successfully meet and exceed these challenges.
During 2016, we rolled out Whip City Fiber to an additional nine neighborhoods in an expanded pilot. The feedback from our new customers has been overwhelmingly positive and interest from both residents and businesses continues to grow. At present, Whip City Fiber is passing approximately 2,300 dwellings in Westfield. Whip City Fiber not only delivers speedy and reliable service but is easily expandable as device technology and the need for more bandwidth develops at a remarkable pace. Fiber optic technology utilizes glass strands and light rather than copper wire and electricity so it’s able to transmit data much farther and faster. Our customers are using the service for daily internet access, phone service, working from home, and streaming entertainment. Today they can even watch the Bruins and Red Sox on NESN from Playstation Vue.
This brings us to an exciting announcement for 2017. After a unanimous vote of the Municipal Light Board, we are now requesting a $15M bond from the City Council to start a major expansion of Whip City Fiber. Commitment to this funding will provide the equipment and labor needed to bring high-speed fiber optic internet service to another 10,000 households in Westfield over the next two years. Additionally, in the next few weeks we expect to announce four more lucky “fiberhoods” where we plan to install service by Spring 2016.
Stay tuned to The Westfield News for the announcement and we’ll be back with regular columns exploring how you can take advantage of the service, savings, and reliability of Whip City Fiber.
For more information about Whip City Fiber, check out our website at www.whipcityfiber.com, drop us an email at [email protected], or give us a call at 413-572-0100.
