(Courtesy: ALLO Communications)
Access to high speed internet tends to wane as you venture from the more urban city of Lincoln, into rural parts of Lancaster County. In an effort to close the connection gap, The County Board has approved a partnership with ALLO communications to extend fiber optic internet to the rest of the region.
Tuesday, the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners signed a lease agreement with ALLO granting a 25-year non-exclusive right of entry and lease in the County Broadband Conduit System. The lease agreement allows ALLO to begin to install its fiber optic technology throughout an estimated 175 miles of public conduit across rural Lancaster County, which will build up quality internet services for residents and businesses throughout Lancaster County.
Several years ago, the city of Lincoln struck a similar partnership with ALLO to bring fiber-optic internet service across the city, “That really put Lincoln in the spotlight as having some of the best, fastest internet in the country,” County Board Chair Christa Yoakum told KLIN News, “We’re doing the same thing now for Lancaster County. That’s really unheard of, to bring that quality of broadband to rural communities.”
Over the next several weeks, ALLO will begin to deploy fiber to those portions of the Conduit System that have been completed in the southwest quadrant of Lancaster County. Weather permitting, all quadrants in the Conduit System are scheduled to be constructed by the end of December 2023, and the installation of ALLO’s fiber in the entire Conduit System is expected to be completed by Spring 2024.
Yoakum said this expansion in access could mean a lot for residents and businesses, “People can work from anywhere in Lancaster County and have that accessibility. It’s huge huge for schools to have that kind of access, huge for businesses to know they can access broadband. This is a huge, huge opportunity for economic development in the county.”
In January 2022, the County Board committed $10 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to support the development of the Lancaster County Broadband Infrastructure Project and officially broke ground in late April 2023.
For more information and construction updates, visit lancaster.ne.gov.