The Road to Greenlight Networks

When deciding where to build, there’s no single factor that makes a town or neighborhood a candidate for Greenlight Networks’ fiber Internet. Our team looks at various factors such as customer demand, cost, and complexity of building in the district, as well as the number of easements and permits required to build the necessary infrastructure within the district.

What does the process look like?

1. The first step in getting Greenlight to a neighborhood is for us to receive email sign-ups through our website from residents who are interested in our service. This lets us gauge the demand in an area and track the level of interest.

Once your neighborhood has gained enough interest, and our team determines your district is a good fit, we add your district to our Construction Schedule and promptly notify residents that have signed up to our list via email.

2. The Construction Planning Phase, or as we refer to this process as “Make Ready” phase begins! This includes final engineering, obtaining permits, easements, and permissions.
Greenlight Networks collaborates with local officials, utility companies, and the Public Service Commission to review the district’s existing infrastructure, look for existing utility paths, and explore permitting options in the easement or right-of-way.

We also need to receive permissions for each utility pole in the district from the utility pole owners for us to access, which on its own can take up to 1 year! Utility poles are usually owned by local governments, utility companies, or a combination of entities that need to grant us permission for the utility pole. They determine if there is room for anything new and rule out any safety issues. This is also where the cost of moving cables is determined. Every entity with cable on a utility pole must send a worker to move wires and make space for our new attachment. This includes both power and electricity providers as well as any telecommunications providers, although contractors will sometimes get permission to move other entity lines to be more efficient.

The Planning Phase can be especially long since it involves obtaining all these necessary permissions. It’s extremely difficult to provide an accurate timeline as we can’t predict how fast and when we will receive all the necessary permissions from every utility pole owner and every resident in each district.
If we are unable to obtain the necessary easements to provide service, our team of Design Engineers must remap the whole district!

During the Construction Planning Phase, the Greenlight Networks team also explores the many types of fiber construction processes that can be used for the district. Every district has different needs and demands – one district may be ready for the fiber carrier medium to flow through conduit underground, and another district may require aerial installation with the fiber carrier medium strung along utility poles.

3. Once we have received all necessary easements, permissions, and permits, we then notify the district residents on our sign-up list via email and The Construction Phase finally begins!

Greenlight Networks works with DigSafe to make sure that all current utilities in the district are marked properly, and we partner with local contractors to begin building out our fiber network in the district.

Building in a new district can take anywhere from 60 days to 6 months (or even longer!) depending on the type of construction (e.g. aerial vs. underground).
To keep you updated during this process, we send out regular updates to residents on our sign-up list via email, so you’ll be informed every step of the way! During this time, we also notify residents to be the first to place their pre-order for our service.

4. Once the Construction Phase is completed, we then notify all district residents on our sign-up list via email that our team will be connecting fiber to the outside of their homes and that they can be the first to place an order and schedule one of our local Fiber Technicians for an in-home installation!

5. Once an order is placed, we get our local expert technicians on the job! The general timeline from receiving an order to a complete resident installation is around 2-4 weeks. Installations typically take under 1 hour. If you are adding our Total Managed Wi-Fi service, the installation is under 2 hours. This allows our technicians enough time to properly set up your Wi-Fi connection.

There is a one-time installation fee that can be paid in full or split into four separate payments, but this charge won’t appear until your first bill. The installation fee covers the cost of both visits and the materials involved in connecting your home.

6. Enjoy the fiber-fast speeds of Greenlight!

What determines where the next Greenlight Neighborhood will be?

Greenlight Networks’ primary focus is to expand our footprint to districts containing at least 500-1,000 households.

Since we don’t use existing infrastructure, laying hundreds of miles of new fiber-optic cable involves significant design, planning, and construction work! Where and when we build is based on several factors: customer demand, the cost and complexity of building in a desired district, as well as the number of easements, permissions, and permits required.

We are continuously working hard to connect more homes to our fiber network every day! Head to our website to view our interactive map – we make sure it’s updated monthly to reflect any status changes in each district. While you’re on our website, don’t forget to sign up for our email list so you can be the first to know of updates regarding your neighborhood!

What is an easement?

An easement is a legal right to use another person’s land for a specific limited purpose. For example, when a resident grants an easement to Greenlight Networks, the resident provides us with a legal right to use the property. To learn more about easements visit our FAQ page.