TCT nearing completion of fiber project in Hamilton Dome

TCT’s construction crew has been working for the past year, boring and splicing fiber in its Owl Creek serving area near Hamilton Dome, with the intent of offering advanced fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services to their customers in the near future.

“This project is one of several projects designed to improve service for prior Tri County Telephone members. The obligation to enhance the network for former members’ benefit was one of the components of the sale of the company,” stated Chris Davidson, TCT’s chief executive officer. The fiber project is located about six miles west of Thermopolis and covers areas of Jones Road, Missouri Breaks Lane, Mud Creek Road and Owl Creek Highway, east of Hamilton Dome Road.

The fiber is being placed underground by a crew of approximately 8-10 employees using a bulldozer with a plow attachment to dig trenches to lay conduit or microduct.

In areas where they are unable to use the plow, trenches are dug with a backhoe or a mini excavator. Some sections require a jackhammer attachment for the mini-excavator to chisel through the rock.

FTTH provides virtually unlimited bandwidth to consumers, enabling better quality Internet, telephone and television services, by running a fiber connection directly into the home.

It replaces traditional copper infrastructure while having enough bandwidth to handle the ever-increasing consumer demands for reliability and affordability.

When this portion of the project is complete, TCT can begin migrating approximately 90 existing business and residential customers to the new services, as well as making those services available to new customers. FTTH technology will allow Hamilton Dome customers to receive TCT’s entire suite of services.