The Broadband Network has been up and running since June of 2024.  The island has 133 connections to the network.  The Plantation’s ownership of the network requires an annual budget for insurance, repairs and reserves for future planned equipment upgrades/replacements.  Through 2025 (18 months), the network experienced only 2 trunkline breaks that required mainland splicers to come to the island to repair.   Muskrat damage and rock friction caused these breaks.  Over the past nine months, however, we have had 5 trunkline breaks.  Three breaks were the result of human error, while two breaks were along the same lines as the first two – muskrats and line friction.

The cost of bringing splicers to the island is approximately $4,000 per break.  We have been budgeting for one break a year.  This was adequate until this year. 

This is a reminder to all property owners that regardless of being a subscriber or not, every property owner is responsible for the fiber trunklines that are on their property.  The network is considered a utility.  Breaks caused by contractors, gardeners and other human activities cannot be paid for by the entire tax base.  Property owners will be invoiced for the cost to repair trunklines when breaks happen due to human error. 

In order to reduce the future cost of trunkline repairs, the Plantation is working with Axiom to bring out a splicer to train several island residents to splice trunklines (which contain between 12 and 24 lines of single fiber).   This will take time since training usually requires a three-day course on the mainland.  Once trained however, the island will have the benefit of quicker response to breaks, lower cost (no payment for time travelling out here), and islanders will be paid for the work instead of someone from the mainland. 

Short term partial solution:  We have orange split conduit available for anyone who wants to better identify the fiber lines on their property as the season closes and vegetation wanes.  This conduit can be cut into small pieces to highlight intermittent areas of the line to draw attention to it for those working on your yard or house.  The conduit is outside of Elva’s and is available for those who would like to use some.