Laying fiber in Noble Subdivision

HDD offers new broadband option

By Michael Butler

The groundwork has already begun. Soon, Tallasseeans will have another internet option. HDD Broadband has already turned on service in some parts of Tallassee.

Larry Rodgers has 18 years of experience in underground drilling for utilities.

"I saw a need in our city for a newer style or newer technology in infrastructure," Rodgers said. "We've done some projects for the city installing new gas lines. A couple of years ago we decided to start installing a new fiberoptic network."

Rodgers said that the investment is solely by the company without federal or state funding.

"We've put about 12 miles of fiber in the ground in Tallassee. We've just now started services for customers in the areas that we've built. We've got state permits and county permits in hand and more applied for to start going out."

Among the areas already with service available include: River Hills, Clairwood and Noble Subdivisions. In addition, parts of Friendship Road, Rifle Range Road, Lakewood Drive, the Tallassee Industrial Park and downtown district have been added.

"We haven't crossed the river yet," said Rodgers. "We do have permission for temporary fiber across the bridge. We're going to bore, drill a hole under the river. That's a pretty massive operation. We intend to put a large enough encasement across the river that we can sell or lease pathways to take some of the stuff off the old bridge."

Rodgers said service is available for about 400 homes or about 25 percent of the Elmore County side of Tallassee.

In addition to high-speed internet service, HDD will also have a Voice Over IP telephone option.

Residential packages begin at $79.99 per month for symetrical upload/download speed of 100 megabytes per second. 250 Mbps is $99.99 per month. 500 Mbps is $119.99 monthly. There is a $200 connection fee.

"Our technology doesn't really slow down when more people get on it. I had some problems at my home at night when everybody would get home streaming TV and children would get on video games.

"The other technology gets bogged down with tremendous amounts of traffic. We don't have that problem with fiberoptics. Ours won't slow down based on local traffic. Now internet traffic has some overhead out there in the world that we can't control, but for the most part you get everything you pay for and get it 24/7."

For more information about HDD Broadband, call 334-430-0049, e-mail: hddbboffice@gmail.com or go online at: www.hddbroadband.com.