City buildings to receive high-speed fiber connections

A new agreement with fiber optics provider Southern Light means Vestavia Hills city officials will soon have faster Internet connections.

At its March 23 meeting, the city council signed a 20-year franchise agreement allowing Mobile-based Southern Light to operate within city limits in exchange for providing fiber connections between city buildings. Vestavia Hills will get to use these fibers at no cost for all non-commercial, public use.

William Hanes, Southern Light’s director of public relations and communications, said this agreement is one of many the company is making with Birmingham municipalities. Southern Light is looking to expand its services to businesses in Vestavia Hills and the Birmingham metro area. Hanes said the company will be able to provide up to 100 gigabytes of bandwidth to city buildings.

“The thing that really sets us apart is the massive amount of capacity we’re able to provide,” Hanes said. “Activating our network in Vestavia Hills will be an economic development asset for the city and region, as all companies now need access to high capacity fiber.”

The fibers will first connect the new municipal center, Parks and Recreation and the Civic Center on Merryvale Road, the Library in the Forest and the city shop on Highway 31. Eventually, this would form the backbone of a network to other city buildings such as police and fire stations. Southern Light will use some strands of the cables to provide Internet access to the city, and the others will be used for corporate customers such as hospitals, banks and wireless carriers.

“It increases the volume and sheer speed that we would have in direct connections,” city council member Steve Ammons said.

First, Southern Light has to map out its network and get permits to lay the fiber cables throughout the city. Cables will either be buried underground or strung from poles. Though some of the cable will be laid near roadways, Hanes said Southern Light’s system involves “very, very minimal” disruption to traffic or the local environment.

The franchise agreement states that the company will make “its best efforts” to get the fiber connections running by Sept. 30. However, Hanes said the project is planned begin by the end of 2015 and he does not know the expected end date.