CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN: Midwest Energy plans to bring *POWERLINE* Internet to customers in Spring 2008

February 06. 2007 6:59AM

Broadband coming to Cass
Midwest Energy plans to bring Internet to customers in 2008.


BARBARA DEMPSEY
Tribune Correspondent

CASSOPOLIS -- Customers of Midwest Energy Cooperative most likely will be able to receive broadband Internet service over power lines by the spring of 2008.

Robert Hance, the cooperative's chief executive officer, spelled out the plans to the Cass County Board of Commissioners last week, saying the company will begin working this spring in Cass County on the necessary technical modifications and equipment needed for the service.

Cass County Administrator Terry Proctor, along with several commissioners, hailed the offering for Midwest's 14,000 electric customers in Cass County as a significant service for those residents without access to either a digital subscriber line, which is offered over telephone lines, or high-speed cable.


"We think it is a good project for us and for Cass County in general," said Hance, who noted its improvement over the more expensive Wild Blue broadband satellite service that Midwest initiated in 2005, or the much slower dial-up service that the cooperative has had in place for several years.

The broadband-over-power lines service, tagged BPL, will be seven or eight times faster than dial-up service at the lowest price to be offered, Hance said.

"It is like making a move from a Model T to a Corvette," he said.

The cooperative hopes that BPL eventually will be available to most of its 36,000 electric customers in 13 counties in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

"It is a great chance for people to get broadband who don't get cable or DSL," Hance said.

The installation fee will run $99, Hance said, with a monthly bill of $29.95, $49.95 or $89.95, depending on the package. There also will be a $50 activation fee.

In contrast, the Wild Blue broadband satellite service, for which the beam is closed because it has reached capacity, required the customer to pay $299 in equipment fees. Monthly charges for that service are $49.95, $69.95 or $79.95, depending on the package.

Midwest initially signed on 428 customers for the satellite program in Michigan and now has 512.

"We have a widely underserved broadband market," said Hance, noting that in a 2004 Wild Blue survey, more than 1,200 customers expressed a strong interest in high-speed operations and 93 percent of those surveyed identified speed, reliability and price as key features they wanted in Internet service.

Hance said that another survey in 2006, done primarily over the Internet to determine interest in broadband-over-power-lines service, resulted in a healthy 12 percent response rate.

Of those responding, 91 percent were "extremely/somewhat interested in a BPL offering at $29.95 per month," according to information provided by Midwest.

Based on information taken from a national survey, 47 million residents in the United States are waiting for or will never have cable data or DSL service.

Proctor said that Cass County, with just over 50,000 residents, has suffered "because big providers won't bring high-speed Internet to us."

He said of the cooperative's plans: "This is great news, a very good thing into the future, and I hope you are successful because people of the county need high-speed Internet (service)."