Fiber Frequently Asked Questions

No. The online ‘interest’ form is intended solely as a tool/resource for CVCTX to identify which neighborhoods have the highest interest in fiber services.

Note…Fiber installation can be an expensive undertaking for any communications company. Areas where CVCTX concentrates its efforts on building out networks first are based on density of requests. Be sure to share your interest and online sign-up with your neighbors. The more people in one service request area, the faster we can build to them.

• Once enough interest is shown within an area or neighborhood, we’ll start the pre-registration phase to determine the level of commitment within the neighborhood.
• If there is sufficient interest, we’ll schedule the construction process in that neighborhood (Fiberhood).
• We encourage anyone that is interested in Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service to discuss the benefits with their friends and neighbors. Areas or zones that do not show significant interest may not be constructed.

The first step is sign up. Interested in fiber service? Sign up today.

We love living in the rural area, but these wide-open spaces do present some challenges, especially when it comes to deployment of a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network. Some of the challenges that could prohibit or delay your access to FTTH include:

• Time: The construction of a new FTTH network is a tremendous endeavor, especially in rural areas where the distances between homes can be great. The last mile of the internet is usually much more than a mile in our area, and describes the term for the last stretch of fiber that connects your home to the backbone of the internet, which is the series of networks that connect the internet across the world. To get this last mile of fiber to your home there are several steps involved, which include network design and Engineering, placing duct, blowing in fiber, setting pedestals, splicing the fiber, installing the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) and testing. As you can imagine, it will take some time to reach many homes, which is why our FTTH project is being planned as a multi-year project. You may see existing fiber near your home that is potentially not part of our FTTH network but is instead part of our transport network. The transport network aggregates all of our customer data for delivery to the backbone and is not available for FTTH.

• Distance/Cost: Fiber from one node in our network to your home may follow a circuitous route depending on terrain and available right of way off a county or state road. Other obstacles like buried fiber versus aerial fiber can dramatically affect costs, thus affecting availability of FTTH. We understand it can be frustrating when a home near yours can get FTTH but you cannot. Unfortunately, that may depend on existing network resources and your proximity to those. Further, in the rural area, your neighbor may be several thousand feet or more away and the cost of extending fiber from them to you could be tens of thousands of dollars. For example, our average cost to place transport fiber is $50,000 to $60,000 per mile.  The average cost for the last mile in our FTTH network is over $ 6,200 per customer.

• Availability of Resources: There are many elements required in a FTTH network in order to deliver high speed internet over fiber. In addition to the fiber optic cables, these elements include conduit, cabinets, optic terminals, optical amplifiers and more.  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) of all sizes are competing for these resources, which can cause shortages and delays to our construction. Interruptions to the supply chain can further delay access to these resources and thus delay the delivery of FTTH to you.

These factors and more could contribute to FTTH not being available at your home yet. After all, there is a reason the larger providers aren’t deploying a fiber network in our rural communities. We appreciate your patience as we build out our fiber network.

In the meantime, we also deploy other technologies to provide broadband Internet where FTTH is not available. Improvements in DSL and Fixed Wireless technologies allow us to offer more bandwidth than ever before over these platforms and we take this into consideration when building our network. As technology continues to evolve, so will our network, so that you may have the best internet experience and experience all the best that comes with life in the country.

In situations where costs to deliver service are over and above costs for a normal installation, an additional payment known as “aid to construction” may be required. This additional fee will cover a portion of the costs of the facilities required to deliver service. If it is determined that aid to construction is required at your location, a company representative will work with you to communicate the payment amount and to obtain the acknowledgement form. Construction will not begin until this process is complete and payment has been received.

During the fiber installation process, CVCTX will construct a network of fiber-optic cables which use light instead of electricity to carry a digital data signal. Installing Fiber has many steps – from building the network to construction and installation to your home:

1. Sign up online (let us know you’re interested)
2. Building the Fiber network
   • Construction plan for your community
3. Engineering & preparation
   • Underground investigation
   • Access rights to property
   • Permitting (local/state)
     • Depending on the location of your home, a county permit or state highway permit may be needed before your service can be installed. This may affect your service installation date, however, CVCTX works closely with agencies to get permits approved in a timely manner (as quick as possible).
   • Utility poles examination
4. Construction
5. Scheduling installations
   • Staking appointment – This appointment is different from installation appointment and may happen several weeks before installation. This will determine where the fiber drop to the home will be placed. Note…Someone will need to be home to meet the technician(s).
   • Home and business sites need to have electricity in place (not just a temporary connection) and walls up before any service or installation can be provided.
   • Installation appointment
6. Relax…It’s time to enjoy your Fiber service!

• Depending on the location of your home, a county permit or state highway permit may be needed before your service can be installed. This may affect your service installation date, however, CVCTX works closely with agencies to get permits approved in a timely manner (as quick as possible).
• CVCTX will first install the main fiber lines along the roadway/highway. Think of this as the ‘main pipeline’ for the Fiber network.
• Once the main line is installed, we will begin contacting you for your permission to install a smaller fiber line to your house.
  • Several weeks before scheduling an installation appointment, we will schedule a staking appointment. The staking appointment is to help us determine where the fiber drop to the home will be placed. NOTE…Someone will need to be home to meet the technicians.
  • Next, we will bury the fiber (through your yard or property) – connecting your house to the main fiber line. This is done with minimal disturbance to your yard and, in most instances, you do not need to be home. Discussions between customer and technicians will determine whether or not you will need to be present during the staking process.
  • After that, we will schedule a time that is convenient for you to be home so that we can complete the installation of equipment inside of your home.

• After the equipment is installed at your home, you can start taking advantage of a much higher speed Internet!

There are 2 parts to the installation:

• The first part which involves burying the fiber line to your home (Fiber drop outside).
  No. Our professional contractor team can take care of the outside portion as long as there’s no threat of injury, damage or dogs.

• The second part is the installation process (inside your home).
  Yes. You will need to be home. We will work with you to coordinate a time that we can install the rest of the required equipment inside of your home.

Since CVCTX buries the fiber line in order to protect the cable from weather and accidental cuts, it is likely we will need to dig in your yard/property.  CVCTX will do everything we can to make sure to minimize any disturbance to your property, and we’ll work hard to restore your property as close to its original condition.

Because we do not disconnect your old copper wiring until the fiber installation is completed (equipment installed inside of your home), you should not experience any service interruption. When we install the equipment inside of your home, you will experience a very short outage while we change out the equipment, however you will be home when this occurs.

CVCTX will install:

• Network Interface Device (NID) on the outside of home/office (excluding fiber service)
• Ethernet jack
• Power/battery supply
• Optical Network Terminal (ONT)
  • The ONT contains electronics that terminate the fiber-optic cable and converts the signals of light back into usable internet signals.

When our technicians arrive to install the necessary conversion equipment inside your home, they will also check your inside wiring to see if any upgrades need to be made. If your wiring or equipment needs to be upgraded, your CVCTX technician can perform the work for you at that time or at later agreed-upon date. Additional costs may be associated with this service, so please speak with a CVCTX representative for estimates if applicable.

• Think about where you might like the equipment installed but stay open to suggestions from our trained technician(s).
• If you have any devices that are currently connected to your modem/router using an Ethernet cable, consider the ideal location of these devices and where you want to locate your new CVCTX modem/router.  Depending on the layout of your home and where your new router is installed, you may need to run new wires to connect these devices.   Our Technician(s) can help you with additional wiring needs during or after your scheduled install at our low, hourly time & materials rate.
• Clear your personal items out of the areas where you think the technician(s) might be working.
• Make sure you have available power outlets to provide service to any new devices, including cable boxes, your modem/router, or any additional wireless access points.
• Make sure permanent power is in-place and available the day of install – not temporary power for builders.