• Contact Us
  • Events calendar
Entering Swellesley
Pinnacle, Wellesley

The Swellesley Report

More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.

  • Advertise
  • Contribute
  • Eat
  • Wellesley Square
  • School
  • Top 10 things to do
  • Embracing diversity
  • Charities/Community
  • Arts
  • Camp
  • Kids
  • Events
  • About us
  • Subscribe
  • Natick Report
  • COVID-19
  • Letters to the Editor
Needham Bank, Wellesley
Boston Sports Institute, Wellesley

Follow-up: Wellesley Municipal Light Plant internet service plans

July 18, 2018 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

wellesley mlp municipal light plantThe Wellesley Municipal Light Plant (MLP) on Monday, July 30 will make a recommendation to its Board to offer internet service to commercial entities in town as the next step toward moving the program from pilot to permanent status.

The pilot program participants — Keynectup; Unitarian Universalist Society; Cat’s Hospital; several town departments; Dana Hall; Hayes Management; and Wellesley College Investment Office — have since March 2017 enjoyed super-fast internet as the town tried out the idea of providing its own service to those looking to cut ties to Comcast, Verizon, and other providers. If the Board okays the request for an expanded roll-out, the MLP will launch full service to even more commercial customers.

MLP Director Dick Joyce says, “We’re currently fine tuning our business model… Our overall approach is to be as risk-averse as possible so we’ll minimize initial one-time, capital costs by concentrating on specific areas of Town.” Namely, those specific commercial areas where the MLP has existing fiber available.

For now, the MLP is not talking about expanding the program to residents, but that may change in the future as they continue to work out their business model.  “Because fiber is readily available in commercial districts we’ll continue to focus just on businesses for the foreseeable future. This concentration provides us with the most risk-averse strategy which is preferred by the Light Board” Joyce says. Right now the town uses a single connection from Needham, but if service is offered to all commercial customers the town will finalize an agreement in place for a second completely independent feed from Cambridge.

Of course, when it comes to internet service, everyone knows it’s all about the need for speed. Wellesley Free Library Director Jamie Jurgensen says, “Prior to the pilot program, librarians would field questions about why our service was so slow at peak time periods. Since utilizing MLP’s service, we haven’t had those questions.”

That’s because the program has been able to provide participants with symmetrical speeds exceeding 900 Mbps to all participants. These speeds have made the program so popular that so far all nine pilot participants asked to continue. The heaviest users, Dana Hall, the Library, Wellesley College Investment Office, and Hayes Management, reported that their upload and download speeds approached 1 Gbps. Joyce said, “If the MLP receives approval from the board, the critical timeline will be getting a second independent connection via Cambridge so we can offer the most reliable service possible. We expect that will take around 45 days so best case scenario we would offer internet service around October 1st, more likely November 1st though.”

Library IT Director Inna Ivers offers these numbers:  “Before the MLP pilot, the library offered speeds up to 100 Mbps. The MLP pilot made it possible for the library to offer speeds up to 1 Gbps. Our patrons are much happier with the new speed and we are thrilled to be a part of this project.”

Jurgensen says, “Participating in the pilot program allowed the library to provide much faster Internet service to patrons. MLP worked diligently with the library to provide successful solutions that integrated their service with our complex library network. We experience outages with our previous provider. At the beginning of the pilot program, we experienced few outages as the new service was being installed. The response times to address out outages were vastly different, however — with MLP responding to any issues immediately.”

As for costs, the town hasn’t differentiated between capital and operating costs but Joyce says the MLP’s total internet costs over the approximately two years from inception have been approximately $200,000.” For pilot program customers, that has meant neither less expensive nor more expensive service since all participants were asked to keep their original internet providers as a back-up. Going forward, the MLP expects to bill at a rate comparable to or slightly less than that of other providers.

The MLP does not need to ask the town for funds to move forward on this project, estimated to cost about $7,500/month for the first year.  “This project is 100% financed from MLP non-operating profits and doesn’t require any funding from the Town or electric ratepayers. We plan to ramp-up slowly if the Light Board approves our recommendation,” Joyce says.

RELATED:

Wellesley MLP readying full internet service for commercial customers

Wellesley MLP streetlights project

print

Share

Filed Under: Business, Government, Media, Technology

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Linden Square, Wellesley
Write Ahead

Tip us off…

Please send tips, photos, ideas to [email protected]
Wellesley Square ad
Wellesley, Jesamondo
Sexton test prep
Feldman Law
Fay School, Southborough
Wellesley Theatre Project
Admit Fit, Wellesley
image of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
Never miss a post with our free daily Swellesley Report email
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

You can subscribe for free, though we appreciate any contribution that supports our independent journalism.

Click here to read our Natick Report

Natick Report

Events Calendar

« January 2021 » loading...
S M T W T F S
27
28
29
30
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
Tue 26

Rum tasting and history talk

January 26 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Most Read Posts

  • Wellesley Police arrest 3 juveniles following Crest Road-area car break-ins
  • Wellesley Business Buzz: Babson might want to study us; Downtown Starbucks temporarily closed; Sisters of Charity partners
  • Natick issues boil water alert due to E. coli, some Wellesley homes affected
  • Nearly half of Wellesley's available restaurant alcohol licenses are gathering dust
  • 10 takeaways from the Town of Wellesley's FY20 annual report

Pages

  • Wellesley coronavirus (COVID-19) updates
  • Wellesley’s 7 official scenic roads
  • Wellesley, Mass., fishing spots
  • Please support our advertisers—they support us
  • Embracing diversity in Wellesley
  • Wellesley, MA Police logs
  • Wellesley Choral Society
  • Wellesley College Notable Alumnae
  • Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
  • Wellesley outdoor art gallery
  • Wellesley restaurants offering take-out and delivery
  • Wellesley, Massachusetts restaurant — Amarin of Thailand

Recent Comments

  • Dennis Noonan on Nearly half of Wellesley’s available restaurant alcohol licenses are gathering dust
  • Kim Powell on Bench at baseball field honors Wellesley’s Harry Clark
  • David Henry on Wellesley electrical boxes coming alive
  • Bob Brown on 10 takeaways from the Town of Wellesley’s FY20 annual report
  • S Hawkinson on 10 takeaways from the Town of Wellesley’s FY20 annual report

Links we like

  • Great Runs
  • Jack Sanford: Wellesley's Major League Baseball Star
  • Taquitos.net
  • Tech-Tamer
  • The Wellesley Wine Press
  • Universal Hub
  • Wellesley Sports Discussion Facebook Group

Categories

  • 2021 Town Election (4)
  • Animals (377)
  • Antiques (48)
  • Art (534)
  • Beyond Wellesley (28)
  • Books (342)
  • Business (1,356)
  • Camp (1)
  • Careers/jobs (44)
  • Churches (72)
  • Clubs (207)
  • Construction (280)
  • Dump (113)
  • Education (2,877)
    • Babson College (239)
    • Bates Elementary School (14)
    • Dana Hall School (29)
    • Fiske Elementary School (6)
    • Hardy Elementary School (33)
    • Hunnewell Elementary School (34)
    • MassBay (47)
    • Schofield Elementary School (20)
    • Sprague Elementary School (19)
    • St. John School (1)
    • Tenacre Country Day School (9)
    • Upham Elementary School (30)
    • Wellesley College (598)
    • Wellesley High School (883)
    • Wellesley Middle School (195)
  • Embracing diversity (37)
  • Entertainment (721)
  • Environment (664)
  • Fashion (133)
  • Finance (12)
  • Fire (141)
  • Food (327)
  • Fundraising (559)
  • Gardens (136)
  • Government (383)
    • 2020 Town Election (47)
  • Health (736)
    • COVID-19 (133)
  • History (358)
  • Holidays (365)
  • Houses (118)
  • Humor (45)
  • Kids (814)
  • Law (3)
  • Letters to the Editor (5)
  • Media (63)
  • METCO (5)
  • Military (3)
  • Morses Pond (96)
  • Music (543)
  • Natick Report (27)
  • Neighbors (242)
  • Obituaries (58)
  • Outdoors (582)
  • Parenting (60)
  • Police (687)
    • Crime (344)
  • Politics (534)
  • Real estate (286)
  • Religion (127)
  • Restaurants (302)
  • Safety (142)
  • Scouts (1)
  • Senior citizens (107)
  • Shopping (121)
  • Sports (897)
  • STEM (104)
  • Technology (154)
  • Theatre (383)
  • Town Meeting (22)
  • Transportation (209)
  • Travel (11)
  • Uncategorized (1,205)
  • Volunteering (317)
  • Weather (161)
  • Wellesley Election 2019 (21)
  • Wellesley Free Library (258)
  • Wellesley's Wonderful Weekend (5)
RSS Feed Icon Subscribe to RSS Feed

© 2021 The Swellesley Report
Site by Tech-Tamer · Login