Fiber Construction Updates
We’re expanding our ultra-fast Internet network to Rural Adel, Rural Dallas Center, Rural Perry, and parts of Rural Waukee. We’ll continue to update this website as we gather more information regarding specific timing for your neighborhood.
February 2, 2026 - Update
Rural Perry
- Winter is here, but spring (and fast internet!) is just around the corner and construction will restart.
- Around 15 customers may be connected this winter; more installations will begin April through July.
- Some fiber still needs to be blown into place so splicers can continue and complete their work.
- Many drops (fiber connections to homes) have already been installed, and the remaining will be done starting in April or as weather allows.
Watch the video above for a full update.
December 12, 2025 - Update
- We had a few new drop requests come in late, shortly before the snow, those will be done in the spring as weather allows.
- All other drops are complete!
- We have about 10 installations left, and our goal is to finish all of them before Christmas. If you need to get installed and haven’t received a call or email from us, please contact us right away so we can make sure you’re not missed.
Rural Perry
- Mainline construction is nearly complete, and some fiber drops are already in place! Work is now paused for the winter and will resume in the spring, weather permitting.
- We’re still reaching out to schedule site surveys and collect service agreements.
- If you haven’t completed these yet, our office will be reaching out by phone and/or email over the winter.
- Our Goal is to have everyone connected by July 4, 2026!
- This is our goal, but the timeline may be affected by weather, coordination with utility companies, and other factors.
- All drops to homes are complete.
- We have about 10 installations left, and our goal is to finish all of them before Christmas. At this point, everyone in this fiberhood should have received a call or email from us to schedule. If you didn’t, please contact us right away so we can make sure you’re not missed.
October 17, 2025 - Update
- 98% of homes now have drop construction completed! Our quality control contractors are visiting select homes to inspect the completed drops and ensure everything meets our standards.
- Splicing is complete, and installations are well underway, with 95% of homes already connected.
- We’ll contact you directly as soon as your home is ready for installation.
- All fiber drops are now officially complete! Our quality control contractors are visiting select homes to inspect the completed drops and ensure everything meets our standards
- Splicing is already underway and should be finished in very early November. After that, we’ll be ready to start installations and get you connected!
- Our goal, which we believe is very achievable, is to complete all installations before Christmas.
September 8, 2025 - Update
- 100% of the mainline is complete!
- 95% of homes have drop construction completed. This means most homes are now connected to the mainline via individual Fiber lines.
- Installations are well underway, with about 80% already scheduled or completed.
- We will reach out to schedule your installation once drop construction and splicing are complete in your area.
Rural Perry
- Mainline construction is now complete in the Southeast and Southwest areas of Perry
- Mainline construction is progressing well across the entire project.
- We’re on track to begin most fiber drops in spring 2026. However, with things moving ahead of schedule, some drops and installations could happen as early as late fall or early winter. Stay tuned for updates!
Timeline may be affected by weather, coordination with utility companies, and other factors.
- Mainline construction is 100% complete.
- 80% of homes have drop construction finished, and we’re actively reaching out to customers as their homes become ready for a drop.
- Splicing crews will be moving to the area in the next two weeks.
- We will reach out to schedule your installation once drop construction and splicing are complete in your area.
June 25, 2025 - Update
- 100% of the mainline is complete!
- 65% of homes have drop construction finished, and we’re actively reaching out to customers as their homes become ready for a drop.
- Installations are well underway, with about 40% already scheduled, and more being added throughout the rest of June and into July.
- We will reach out to schedule your installation once drop construction and splicing are complete in your area.
Timeline may be affected by weather, coordination with utility companies, and other factors.
- Mainline construction is 90% complete.
- Once each section of mainline work is finished, we’ll begin scheduling drop construction. We’ll notify you as soon as your home is ready for this next step.
- Following drop installation, we’ll move into splicing, testing, and final installations. Right now, we anticipate installations in this area to begin in August.
Rural Perry
- Mainline construction is nearly complete Southeast of Perry!
- In rural Sourthwest and North of Perry, conduit has been places in many areas. Next, we’ll blow or pull Fiber through the conduit.
May 27, 2025 - Update
- 100% of drop construction is complete.
- 90% of installations are done and 10% are scheduled.
- Mainline construction is about 80% complete.
- We’ve officially started drop construction! So far, about 10% of homes have their drops installed, and 15% have been scheduled. We’ll notify you as soon as your home is ready for a drop.
- Once the drop is installed, we’ll move on to splicing and testing. After that, your installation will be scheduled!
- About 80% of the mainline construction is done.
- Once mainline sections are completed in these areas, drop construction can be scheduled.
- We’ll contact you as soon as your home is ready for a drop! Splicing, testing, and installation will follow.
Rural Perry
- Mainline construction has officially started!
- This part of the construction takes the most time, (and has the most steps) as we are constructing the equivalent of ‘a 1,000 lane interstate system’ which will bring you the unmatched Internet experience you need and deserve.
April 23, 2025 - Update
- We’re currently working on obtaining necessary permits and locating existing utilities.
- Mainline construction (burying main Fiber lines along public right-of-way) to begin soon. Goal to complete the mainline by the end of 2025.
- While ‘drops’ (the connection from the mainline Fiber to your home) might start late this fall and winter, it’s more likely they will begin in early spring 2026, with customer installations following shortly after.
Timeline may be affected by weather, coordination with utility companies, and other factors.
April 2, 2025 - Update
- Mainline construction in Adel South is now 100% complete.
- 56% of drop construction is done. This is where our contractors use specialized equipment to bury your Fiber from the mainline to your home.
- 25% of installations are completed. We will reach out to you as soon as your home is ready for installation.
Rural Adel North and Dallas Center North
- The mainline is at 75% completion in Adel North and 50% in Dallas Center North.
- Drop construction and splicing will start once the mainline sections are completed.
- We’re currently collecting agreements from residents in these areas and scheduling site surveys. If you haven’t had a site survey yet, expect a call from one of our Customer Service Representatives soon.
- If weather this spring is favorable, we are expecting to start drop construction in June.
Adel North and Dallas Center North have until April 30th, 2025, to sign up for Fiber Internet.
March 5, 2025 - Update
We are still thrilled to be bringing you the fiber Internet you deserve. Fiber is the best, most reliable and cost-effective product and only about 40% of Iowans have access to it…and you will be in the select group soon!
- This update is for those who have signed up or have submitted interest.
- We wanted to provide you with as many specifics as possible including timelines for signing up and installations.
Quick note: below we spell out the project area names, so it is easier for you to view the maps and understand the projects. I’ll use the project area names in sections below related to timelines, etc.
There are 4 main project areas:
- Adel South (zones east & west). Shown in green on map linked below.
- Adel North & Dallas Center North. Shown in green on map linked below.
- Rural Perry (zones north and south). Shown in orange on map linked below.
- ‘NOFA 8’ has different rules than previous 3. More details below.
Please refer to our maps – for reference, here are build area maps.
Dates to sign-up to get a *free drop
- Adel South – by March 15, 2025
- Adel North & Dallas Center North – April 30, 2025
- NOFA 8 areas – April 30, 2025
- Perry Rural – Tentative date of July 21, 2025
*Drops cost us approximately $9.00 per foot. If your home is within 500 feet of the mainline, we WAIVE the cost entirely. For homes beyond 500 feet, we charge only $100 for each additional 100 feet. For example, if your home is 600 feet away, the drop would cost us $5,400, but you’ll only pay $100. If your home is 500 feet away, it would cost us $4,500, but you will pay nothing. Find out how long your drop will be by giving us a call!
Note: Our construction partner Precision Underground, and their sub-contractors may have as many as 9 teams/crews working in different regions of each project area, so several aspects of each project are likely to be happening at the same time.
For all areas except rural Perry, mainline construction started in the spring of 2024. Rural Perry construction will begin in spring of 2025.
Adel South (one project area with east & west zones)
East of Raccoon River:
- 100% of the mainline Fiber has been blown into the mainline conduit and splicing and testing are underway. It will take splicers about 3 weeks to finish all the mainline splicing.
- 36% of the drops to customers who signed up by November of last year are in the ground. Once mainline splicing/testing is complete in an area, we will direct splicing crews to work on the drops that are ready so we can turn those customers up. We expect installs to start in late March and continue into summer as the remaining drops are plowed in and spliced.
West of Raccoon River:
- Fiber is just starting to be blown into the mainline conduit, and splicing will start as the different ‘legs’ of the network are blown into place.
- 20% of drops are in the ground and will be spliced as the mainline they are connected to is completed.
All remaining drops on both east and west sides of the river start when the ground thaws and is dry enough to allow the drop machines to do their work.
Splicing and customer turn-up for the remaining drops will be completed as they are ready, which is expected to be this summer.
Adel North & Dallas Center North (one project area split into 2 build zones)
- Adel North – 70% of the mainline conduit construction is done. As mainline sections are ready, Fiber will be blown in. Mainline splicing/testing will start as sections are ready.
- Dallas Center North – 45% of the mainline conduit is done, and as the sections are ready, fiber is being blown in. Mainline splicing/testing will start when sections are ready.
- All drops will be scheduled, installed, and then spliced/tested as mainline sections are completed.
- Installations are expected to start in June, if the weather this spring is favorable, and are expected to be completed in August or September.
NOFA 8 gap areas (awarded to bring to specific addresses in ‘gap’ areas)
- NOFA stands for Notice of Funding Availability, and the 8 signifies it is the 8th grant round. The reason this project is not named like the others is because it has different rules than our other grant awards.
- NOFA 8 aims to make fiber available to *specific addresses* rather than to entire census blocks, as the other awards did. This is significant because one address might be eligible while a neighboring address might not be eligible.
- The eligible addresses are adjacent to the Adel and Dallas Center projects, so they are being built at the same time.
- The challenge with this project is properly communicating with eligible customers and their non-eligible neighbors, as we are going right by them.
- In short, we DO want to serve NOFA 8 non-eligible customers, but we can’t do it right now since we must follow the grant award rules.
- The mainline construction is the same as Dallas Center North.
- Drops will be scheduled, installed, and then spliced/tested as the mainline is completed.
- Installations will start in approximately the same time as Dallas Center North.
The steps to build a Fiber network:
After reviewing our communications from last year, I don’t think we did a good job of explaining the stages of fiber construction and the appropriate timelines for each stage. Therefore, I thought there is some benefit to you to understand the steps in the process, so all of it makes more sense.
Fiber construction steps in the process:
- Mainline construction (using plows, directional-boring equipment, small excavators)
- Blow or pull Fiber into conduit
- Splice mainline Fiber
- Install Fiber drops to homes (using small yard plows and maybe a directional-boring machine)
- Splice and test the drops
- Install Internet and other services at customer’s home
I have the benefit of knowing that timelines for Fiber projects are challenging to predict accurately, even in the best of circumstances. And there are many variables in a project of this size that can impact timelines: weather and the contractor availability are the largest ones. In previous projects, we have seen material availability as an issue, but that is not the case now.
The pandemic made everyone realize how many customers needed Fiber Internet because they were dramatically underserved. That need led to grant funding being made available. In Iowa’s case, it was made available through the Iowa Broadband Grant Program.
Collectively, these projects will cost $19.6 million to complete. We received grant funding to cover about 40% of those costs from the Iowa Broadband Grant program, which made these projects financially feasible. (The grant was supposed to be a higher percentage of the cost, but the project costs rose significantly post pandemic.)
We are enamored to be doing these projects, providing the opportunity to serve so many who deserve great Internet but don’t yet have it.
Yet, 60% of the $19.6 million project is still a large investment to make, and it takes time to do it well. A challenge has been that with so many companies like us building Fiber networks (in Iowa and the US), it is difficult to find qualified contractors (mostly for drops to homes), especially at the standards we expect for construction.
February 17, 2025 - Update
Rural Adel and Dallas Center North
- Mainline fiber construction is happening now.
- Connections to your home (called ‘Drops’) will resume this spring.
- Installations will start this spring and continue throughout summer.
- Customers in the Adel South build area have until March 15, 2025, to sign a Drop Permit.
- Customers in all other areas above have until April 30, 2025, to sign a Drop Permit.
Rural Perry
- Fiber construction will begin late spring into early summer and will continue until the ground is frozen.
- The connection to your home (called ‘Drops’) will begin in early spring of 2026 with installations to follow.
- Communication continues to all customers about this project.
Watch the video above for a full update.