Blog Archive

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Spring, and EPB Network Updates, Just Around the Bend




The calendar says that spring is just around the corner, and we are ready for it, because we have a lot of work to do. Right along with nature’s transition, your EPB team is also planning a spring full of construction and maintenance to our networks. Some of that activity will impact the products you purchase from us, so this message is an update on the upcoming activities.

Over the next several weeks you will see several notices from us regarding internet, cable television, and electric power projects that might impact you. As we have been saying for some time, the very best way to stay abreast of these events in real-time is to “like” our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/glasgowepb This page has become the easiest way for us to move timely information out to all 15,000 of our customers.

The biggest upcoming potential impact on your internet services comes from a variety of sources. We now connect Glasgow to the world through high capacity circuits from Windstream and AT&T, but we are about to add a third source via our partnership with other cities called MuniNet. Very soon MuniNet connectivity will add a new internet access point from Level3 in Nashville. Upcoming maintenance activity from Windstream and AT&T may cause some night time interruptions, or slow downs, to your internet service from EPB. At the same time, upcoming additional bandwidth from Level3 should, after our initial testing of the new connections, enhance your internet throughput significantly. Though all three of these issues will result in improvements to our product, like all construction projects, getting through the changes may prove a bit bumpy. Stay tuned to our Facebook page and our Twitter feed https://twitter.com/glasgowepb for updates.

We have other network projects that will affect you as well. In an effort to establish multiple redundant fiber circuits for TJ Samson Hospital and the new TJ Healthcare Pavilion, we will be adding new fiber routes into our JMYTC Technology Center at the EPB offices. That work, and the splicing necessary to incorporate it into the city wide network, will cause some both cable and internet interruptions, mainly during the wee hours of the morning, for several hours.

Finally, we also have a couple of large electric power network projects that may affect you, especially as you drive around the neighborhoods surrounding our Front Street Substation. Over the next couple of months a line construction contractor will be performing work doing what we call “reconductoring.” As the cost of energy has risen over the decades, we find that some smaller conductors which usually carry large amounts of current, are simply no longer economically efficient. The upcoming work will consist of removing the smaller conductors near Front Street Substation and replacing those with much larger capacity conductors.

We join you in welcoming spring to Glasgow! Hopefully, spring, along with these projects, will bring us much more benefits than frustrations.

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