Syringa Networks recently completed the first leg of their project to bring fiber optic internet through the Silver Valley.

In March, Bill Coale, a senior account manager with Syringa Networks, threw down a guarantee at the Shoshone County Airport as he discussed how his company will have fiber optic broadband in Kellogg later this year.

As of right now, his crews are in Cataldo and we are only at the end of June.

Coale then spoke with the Historic Silver Valley Chamber of Commerce last week and gave them a quick update on the progress thus far.

“I have been told that we’ve made it to Cataldo,” Coale said. “But we are still planning on coming to Kellogg this year. It’s near impossible to put an exact time frame on it, but they should be there by winter barring any unforeseen issues.”

Although Coale is saying Kellogg by this winter, others with Syringa have mentioned that they believe they could be in Wallace if the weather cooperates.

Once again, the question of whether or not Syringa will be able to provide faster speeds of internet to the residents of Shoshone County came up and Coale answered in the way that has almost become a tradition during his visits.

“We don’t do residential services,” Coale said, “we only do business. Now that’s not saying we can’t provide our services to the local providers who can then turn around and sell it to residents though.”

Local cable and internet provider, Suddenlink Communications, have been responsible thus far for getting Syringa’s line to Cataldo; so it is safe to assume that a “local provider” already has invested interests.

Syringa account executive, Valerie Cramer, confirmed that once the line is laid to a town and if a local provider decides to tap into that line, customers of that local provider would have the opportunity to experience the high speed internet.

Suddenlink representatives could not be reached for comment concerning how customers would go about receiving the high speed internet or if/when it would be available to them.

In previous meetings Coale discussed the company’s overall goal of getting their service all the way to Missoula, but they have to go through Shoshone County to get there, which has presented the county with a golden, but cost heavy opportunity.

One of the biggest hurdles that needed to be jumped is the setting up of a central office and access point (or more popularly referred to as a hub), as well as the heavy cost for setting up such a location. These hubs are where the installation and use of the fiber optic lines gets tricky and expensive.

“These buildings must be bought,” Coale said in a previous meeting, “once you get the equipment inside of them you don’t want to move it. The equipment for the hub cost $5-6 million, which doesn’t include the building itself.”

Getting businesses on board will be key as Coale works to figure out how he can make this beneficial to the residents, but there is still plenty of time to get everything worked out.

“We still have to work with the local communities to get the service to the public,” Coale said. “But we are making progress.”