Highline’s partner, AEG, has crews very busy laying cable to the West end of the Township. Highline’s project manager, Jake Stedman, recently issued the following construction update on November 14, 2023:
As of yesterday (Nov. 13), the crews are finishing up getting fiber placed along Thousand Island Lake Road. There is around 2.5 miles left to place in the existing conduit and then the path will be complete all the way back to town. Splicing has already started on the fiber that they have placed. They still have to finish the public portion of Maplewood Road and build Crooked Lake Road. Other than that, they are still working down Roddis Road toward the very southern end of Cisco Lake Road.
Highline is hoping to get a contractor on Deerpath Road and the private portion of Maplewood Road before the end of the year.
Crews have also started working on the Cisco Lake Road leg on the west side of the zone. One contractor has nearly completed the entire path on Old US-2 from Thousand Island Lake Road to Cisco Lake Road. Crews have gotten fiber down Cisco Lake Road to Sylvan Isle Drive where another crew had already built the public road portion and placed fiber last week.
Production may be a little slower this week with some crews taking a few days off to hunt, but they are trying to shuffle crews around to compensate.
Next Steps:
Once the cable is laid on the roads, Highline will be calling MISDIGS to mark utilities for all the driveways of homeowners requesting Highline internet service on the roads noted above. Homeowners are also encouraged to mark any underground services that they installed privately (i.e. sprinklers, irrigation, invisible fence, electric lines not run by We Energies, etc.). As the driveways get marked, Highline will be phoning all those homeowners and letting them know crews will be installing the fiber down their driveways (homeowners need not be home).
After the fiber is laid to the house, Highline will be calling homeowners again to arrange a time for a Highline technician to come into the home and connect the fiber to a Highline provided router (homeowners will need to be home to allow the technician access). For those homeowners unable to be present (snowbirds, etc), Highline will be back in the spring to finish the installations.
Also in the spring, Highline will also be back to Watersmeet to connect the rest of the Township that qualified for the RDOF grant to lay fiber optic cable.
Any questions – please call Trustee Yvonne Clark at 906-477-3029.
Watersmeet Broadband Task Force
Yvonne Clark, Trustee
John Oliver, Trustee
Bob McGuffin
Greg Clark