Construction
- Get Moving at the Speed of Greenlight
What to Expect During Construction
It’s important to us that you are informed every step of the way in our construction process.
As our teams start to prepare your neighborhood for fiber, we will be reaching out to you by email, SMS, social media, and even knocking on your door to keep you updated! We encourage you to sign up, as it provides you with the best opportunity to be notified of construction updates in your neighborhood.
Construction Steps
1. Evaluate
When deciding when and where to build next, our team first looks at a number of factors such as demand, cost and complexity of building a network, the number of easements and permits required, among other factors.
2. Design & Utility Pole Process
Once a location is selected to be built, it’s time for the engineering process to begin. This process involves evaluating a district and constructing a plan for laying the fiber as well as beginning to identify where easements may be required. This is also the time that our team will begin the utility pole application process, which can take up to 365 days. This is the long pole in the tent…literally! Our team is locating and evaluating necessary poles and getting required permissions to access these poles to properly construct our infrastructure.
3. Schedule
After the network design is complete, this district is ready to be added to our construction schedule. Keep in mind that various districts will be on this schedule at once, so we must add in each district accordingly. During this time, we will be reaching out to you to place your pre-order for service.
4. Build
Our team will now be obtaining all final permits necessary to build and work with DigSafe to make sure that current utilities are marked properly. Once that is complete, we will partner with local contractors to begin building our network in your district. Construction can be completed aerially or underground or in a combination, depending on the utilities currently in your neighborhood.
5. Install
Once construction is complete, customers will be notified that our team will be connecting fiber to the outside of your home and to schedule your in-home installation so a Fiber Technician can connect your home with New York’s Fastest Fiber-Optic Internet Provider! Once your installation is complete, you are ready to stream, surf, and explore using your new fiber-optic internet connection.
Installation Process
Greenlight Networks will reach out to schedule your installation. Fiber comes to your home or small business in a square, similar to your cable modem. This is known as an ONT or “optical network termination.” From there, you can plug your router into the ONT. We recommend updating your router if it is older to ensure you are receiving the fastest possible speeds on our network. Learn more about what routers work best for fiber-optic Internet.
Most of the work is done outside and the install team only needs to be inside for a short amount of time to connect the fiber to the ONT and ensure everything is working properly.
Construction & Restoration Process
Construction is messy work, and we always try to leave the area as good or better than it was when we started. Occasionally, we’ll need to return to make repairs or do additional clean-up. See an issue that needs our attention?
Construction FAQs
The flags or marking in your area were placed by the local utility companies and help our team identify where the lines are underground. Before Greenlight can start construction of our fiber-optic network, we need these markings to protect against damage to other utilities on your property. Our construction crews will come back through to remove the flags once construction of the network is complete. Please see the list below for an explanation of utility color associations. Learn more about the process for identifying utilities.
- Red = Electric
- Yellow = Gas/Oil/Steam
- Blue = Water
- Green = Sewer
- Pink = Survey Markings
- White = Proposed Excavation
Greenlight installs conduit and fiber-optic cable along an underground path in the Town Right of Way using a surface-launched drilling rig. This method is trenchless and has minimal impact, any impact to the town property will be completely restored. Greenlight drills approximately 36 inches below the surface to avoid other utilities.
Greenlight is permitted to access designated utility easements also known as a right-of-way (ROW), usually located within a strip of land running along the street, sidewalk, a rear lot line, or between two lots. Many homeowners maintain the ROW areas that are adjacent to their property for the aesthetics of it, however, it is not owned by the homeowner.
The city or town owns small but specific portions of your property to access and maintain city or town-owned utilities. We work with the town or city permitting departments to access these areas to build our fiber-optic network.
A utility easement is a legal right to use another homeowner’s land for a specific limited purpose. In other words, when a homeowner grants an easement to Greenlight, the homeowner is providing Greenlight the legal right to use the property. The legal title to the land itself does not change. Ownership of the property remains solely with the homeowner. Learn more about the easement process.
The right-of-way in a town or city typically refers to property owned by the town or city. The property is generally in line with the “road” and wider than the road. Typically, the road right-of-way (ROW) is 50 to 100 feet wide.
During the design phase, the engineering team determines the most efficient way to provide service. They select the least intrusive intersecting rear property point as the general location for a pedestal which is often in the center of four property corners. From that point, the pedestal location is thoughtfully identified based on the following factors:
- Existing underground utilities.
- Location of the underground conduit that will feed the pedestal.
- Proximity to other pedestals.
- Landscape features and/or obstructions.
- Ease of accessibility for crews to construct and maintain the network.
To receive regular updates, please check availability in your neighborhood.
Our construction team will do everything they can to minimize any impact on your property. Once construction is complete and weather permits, we’ll restore lawns in areas where digging occurred. Learn more about our restoration process.
Our construction team approaches your yard with the assumption that there may be private utilities located underground and will do their best to avoid these. If you would like to take an extra precautionary step please reach out to Greenlight Networks or mark areas of concern with pink or white flags or landscape-safe paint to alert our team of the need for caution.