PRLog - March 3, 2015 - COLONIAL BEACH, Va. -- MetroCast Communications, which provides video, Internet, phone and direct fiber services to homes and businesses in Virginia and six other states, has rebuilt a damaged point-to-point fiber interconnect that serves Colonial Beach Elementary School, Colonial Beach Middle School, Colonial Beach High School and the Colonial Beach School Board offices.
The fiber connection, which is owned by the school district, was damaged last November during construction activity at a local condominium development. The school system, which depends on the fiber connection for network communications between its facilities, had been unable to complete critical administrative functions without the connection, and School Board staff was forced to relocate to the school offices on First Avenue after the fiber was damaged.
When it learned of the situation, MetroCast, which has facilities and an office in Colonial Beach, stepped in and offered to rebuild the fiber connection at cost, saving the district more than $15,000.
Delegate Margaret Ransone, a resident of Westmoreland County, and a citizen legislator who represents the 99th District in the Virginia House of Delegates, said, “Given how important this data connection is to the entire Colonial Beach school community, I commend MetroCast for its initiative and the effort it undertook to develop a cost-effective solution for the Town and School Board that restored the data link in an expedited way.”
Colonial Beach Township Manager Val Foulds said the Town will be responsible for the out-of-pocket costs associated with the project. This includes the cost of materials supplied by MetroCast, as well as labor costs to manage the project and to rebuild more than 600 feet of the fiber network. “The project cost from MetroCast was less than one-fifth of the estimates we received from other parties,” she said.
“Even though we did not own the fiber and were not involved in its damage, as longtime supporters of this community, and as a community member ourselves, we wanted to do what we could to assist,” said Bill Newborg, MetroCast’s General Manager for its Virginia systems.
MetroCast, which has offices in Colonial Beach, King George, Bowling Green, Mathews, Northumberland (Burgess), Warsaw, Saluda and Kilmarnock, was recognized by the Virginia Cable & Telecommunications Association with its Technology Award last November for contributions to the cable industry and to the Association. VCTA said, "[MetroCast] has spent millions of dollars rebuilding and expanding its service in rural Virginia. This company has also built more than 150 miles of Fiber Transport Backbone to interconnect these systems [and] now offers a full array of Advanced Services in these rural communities."
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MetroCast Communications provides communications and entertainment services to more than 170,000 households and businesses in seven states. In addition to residential and business-class video, Internet and phone, MetroCast offers a suite of Ethernet-fiber solutions, including Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), Point-to-Point and Point-to-MultiPoint, with symmetrical data transmission speeds up to 1 Gbps, as well as advanced phone solutions, including Digital Business Trunking. For more information, see MetroCast.com and MetroCastBusiness.com.
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MetroCast provides fiber-fix for Colonial Beach Schools
March 03, 2015 at 09:33 AM EST
