July 24, 2024 Aurora, Neb. — Hamilton, a local telecommunications and technology company, has completed a multi-year, multi-million dollar project to construct direct Fiber access throughout the entirety of its Hamilton Telephone local exchange territory. With over 1,187 miles of fiber laid throughout Hamilton County, and parts of Clay and Adams counties, every resident within the Hamilton exchange territory can now be connected directly to Fiber access.
The project began in 2017 when Hamilton announced that it would begin burying fiber to replace its entire infrastructure and deliver Fiber Internet directly to 100% of customer homes and businesses. Since that time, the company has buried conduit, pulled and spliced fiber down rural roads, in town, under railroad tracks and through neighborhoods to deliver the future-proof broadband internet connections to its customers.
“We are thrilled to have achieved this very important milestone,” said John Nelson, CEO of Hamilton. “To be able to say that anybody in our exchange area can access Internet speeds up to 1 Gigabit, even if they live in the country miles away from the next house, is monumental. We know that many people, even in the largest of cities, do not have access to these speeds. These connections are big for our customers and they are critical for our communities to continue to grow and thrive well into the future.”
The company began the construction project in the Spring of 2017 by building out fiber to the home in Hampton and connected the very first residential Fiber customer on July 26, 2017. Today, Hamilton has fiber available to more than 3,700 locations including 454 businesses. Delivering fiber has allowed the company to increase the speeds delivered to every customer without increasing prices, while adding new Data plans and bundles to the company’s service offerings. “One of the things we are most pleased about,” Nelson said, “is that we have been able to build out and deliver fiber service, which is far superior and increase speeds, and keep prices for Internet the same as they have been since October 2001, even in the face of more than twenty years of cumulative inflation.”
Hamilton is excited to be on the forefront of this technology as fiber to the home is not widely available across the country, or even across the state, especially in rural areas. This infrastructure will position Hamilton to continue to provide faster speeds and reliable service for many years to come.
The next steps to fully complete the infrastructure upgrade is for the company to begin the process of retiring and de-commissioning its copper plant. “While we have tried to reach every customer, we still have some customers we have not been able to get in touch with to get them connected,” Nelson said. “Any customer in the Hamilton exchange that has not been connected to Fiber can contact us now to get converted and connected. We will make every possible attempt to reach and convert customers before retiring the copper hut and service in their area.” For questions related to fiber service or to schedule a fiber site survey at your location, please contact the business office at 402-694-5101, or visit www.Hamilton.net/fiber-to-the-home to learn more.
Hamilton continues to embark on building out Fiber throughout the state as it is in the midst of constructing Fiber to the Home for residents in its local Nebraska Central Telephone exchange which include 21 exchanges in North Central Nebraska.
Hamilton Telecommunications is a diversified telecommunications and technology services provider based in Aurora, Neb. Founded in 1901, Hamilton Telecommunications encompasses eight primary company divisions that allow Hamilton to operate on a local, regional and national basis.