HMP&L to construct gigabit internet network in Henderson
HENDERSON, Ky. − Super-fast internet service from the city’s electric utility is going to be offered to Henderson homes over the coming months and year or so.
Henderson Municipal Power & Light is building a $16 million expansion to its fiber optic network to make multi-gigabit broadband service available to every residence, including apartments, in the city of Henderson. That includes even those that aren’t served by HMP&L electric service, such as Kentucky Utilities Co. customers on edges of town.
Construction underway
A contractor, Fiber Optics Solutions, has begun hanging fiber optic lines to utility poles. “We’re attaching to every single HMP&L pole in our system” — some 10,000 in all — as well as to areas served by underground power lines, HMP&L General Manager Brad Bickett said last week.
“We’ll be up to six to eight crews working when (the construction work is fully) ramped up,” he said. Residents will be seeing Fiber Optics Solutions crews in their neighborhood with large spools of fiber optic line. Bickett said their trucks will “be identified as working for HMP&L Fiber with magnetic signs.” Crews will also have informational letters to hand out.
“We started last week, working downtown, working toward the hospital along Sixth, Seventh and Eighth streets,” Bickett said. “We’ll expand from there and work south … We expect the whole city will be built out by next year, July 2025,” although many residents will be able to acquire the service much sooner, as early as this spring.
“We’ll start soon with drops” — running fiber lines from utility poles to homes — “to individual customers,” he said. “We’ll be hooking people up (to the gigabit service) along the way … Within a month we’ll start hooking people up.”
Residents interested in HMP&L Fiber service will be able to sign up online at www.hmpl.com in the coming weeks. “We do intend to step up marketing” in the future, Bickett said.
Already, “We have a handful of residential customers at the Imperial” apartment building at Third and Water streets, he said.
“By the end of 2025, we should be able to hook up anyone who wants that internet service.”
Choice of speeds
Service options will begin at $79.95 per month for a guaranteed 1 gigabit-per-second (aka, 1 gig or 1 Gbps) of speed with no data limit. A decade or so ago, 10 megabit internet service was considered very fast for home users; 1 gigabit service is the equivalent of 1,000 megabit (aka, 1,000 meg or Mbps) service, or 100 times faster than 10 meg internet.
“At 1 gig, you have a connection that will never be the limiting factor” in your broadband experience, Brian Hardesty, HMP&L’s chief technology officer, said.
Or, as he put it succinctly, “It’s very fast.”
The service will be symmetrical, meaning speeds will be as fast for uploading (sending) data as downloading (receiving data). In prior years, upload speeds were often a fraction of download speeds. That didn’t matter much to folks who just consume online content, but it was a limiting factor for people needing to send large files, such as video.
Consumers have been demanding faster and faster internet service, not only for surfing the web but for streaming TV and movie services (include very high-quality 4K video on multiple TVs and devices), downloading software, connecting video door cameras and other security devices to a security service provider and other uses. The trend for employees to work from home has only driven the demand for swift internet service further.
Homes wanting even faster service (such as for online gaming) will be able to buy HMP&L Fiber 2-gig service for $109 per month or 5-gig service for $179.95 per month.
Once a customer has signed up for service and the contractor has completed the fiber drop to the outside of the home, a HMP&L Fiber technician will come to complete the connection inside the home.
“It will be managed WiFi service,” Bickett said. “We’ll come in and install and you’re ready to go. There will be no other charges added on.” The service will include a gateway that can wirelessly connect a customer’s smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers and other devices to the service.
Once the home installation is complete, “We’ll sit down with customers and answer questions,” he said.
Bickett said HMP&L will provide a superior broadband experience for customers by providing all-local service, from installation technicians to customer support.
HMP&L Fiber customers will have the option to bundle VOIP (voice over IP, or internet) landline telephone service for an additional $29.99 per month and receive a $15 discount on their internet service. For example, 1 gig service bundled with phone service would cost $94.94 per month.
“We want to provide the best service to you at a competitive price that allows us to recover our costs,” Bickett said.
“When we’re cash-flow positive” — turning a profit, perhaps in a few years — “we may offer lower-speed packages” at a lower cost, he said.
Why offer fiber?
The decision to offer fiber internet service was two-fold, Bickett said.
First, “The financial model does work. We’ll be cash-flow positive in the third year if we get the take (customer signup) rates we expect.”
Second, as the Kenergy Corp. rural electric service builds its own high-speed internet service out in the countryside, “If we don’t provide the service, potentially customers in the city will not have the same options as people in the county.”
Bickett said the city of Henderson sold general obligations bonds to finance the $12 million HMP&L Fiber buildout as well as a $5 million “advance meter infrastructure” project to start installing smart meters that will allow electric customers to monitor and better manage their power consumption and potentially save money.
The competition
HMP&L Fiber will have competition, including from two major players: AT&T and Spectrum.
AT&T offers fiber service in limited portions of Henderson and advertises “up to 1 gig speed” for $80 per month.
The Spectrum cable TV service offers coaxial broadband service here and advertises up to 300 Mbps for $49.99 per month and up to 1 gig for $69.99 per month.
The Gleaner wasn’t able to immediately locate local AT&T or Spectrum customers with up-to-1-gig service who had run online tests to determine their actual speeds.
However, Ookla Research’s internet speed testing site speedtest.net said the expected download speed in Henderson for AT&T Internet ranged from about 75Mbps to about 570 Mbps while Spectrum speed ranged from 100 Mbps to about 375 Mbps. It said that was based on speed tests conducted by consumers from October through December 2023.
Business customers
HMP&L’s fiber-to-home network is an expansion of the fiber optic broadband service it has offered to commercial customers since 1999. That fiber service is used by almost 500 commercial customers including all Henderson County schools, including those out in the county. (HMP&L also once offered a wireless internet service to residences but abandoned it years ago when it became obsolete.)
“With the new network, existing business customers will be automatically upgraded to more bandwidth for the same or lower price that they currently pay,” with the slowest service to be increased from 100 Mbps to 600 Mbps,” according to Bickett.
Monthly rates for standard business fiber service will range from $59.95 for 600 Mbps service to $299.95 for 5 gig service. Commercial customers would also have the options of a range of other services and packages with speeds up to 10 gigs.
With 25 years of experience providing fiber optic communication service here, Bickett said, “We’ve got a really good team. We truly are providing the best internet option that’s available today.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Can I get high-speed internet in Henderson, Kentucky?
