Partly to mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 94F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 76F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.

Three years after it took initial steps to expand broadband in the region, the East Texas Council of Governments (ETCOG) have presented a three-phase, $2.6 million plan to Gregg County.

Gregg County Commissioners on Wednesday heard from Information Technology Director Derold Miller and ETCOG Executive Director David Cleveland who broke down the plan’s various projects and their objectives.

While part of the same plan, the projects are separate and planned in three phases, Miller explained.

The fist phase involves the county’s partnership with Conterra Networks and supports advanced connectivity and services throughout the county, Miller said. He described the county’s current wide-area network as a having a “spoke and hub topology,” meaning that it has one data center at the courthouse that branches out and services 16 locations.

Once the first phase of the plan is implemented, the hub and spoke system will change to a “ring” system that circulates throughout the entire county, Miller said.

“Essentially connecting the dots,” County Judge Bill Stoudt said.

“The goal of updating the current network from a hub and spoke topology to a ring topology is to add a second data center at Marvin A. Smith Detention Center,” Miller said.

The second data center will serve as a failover, or backup, should the first center go down, Miller said. He referred to this system as an active-active network. Later, Stoudt said the location was chosen because it’s in the middle of the county, which serves as a good spot for the hub. According to Miller, all 16 locations will have access to both data centers at the same time all the time.

“This is a critical means of ensuring network reliability to meet both current and future usage needs,” Miller said. “Fiber enables economic growth countywide, that’s evident and local leadership ensures success of this project.”

Cleveland walked commissioners through phases 2 and 3 of the plan and started by explaining that while the plan is an efficient way to close the gap between the urban and rural areas of broadband in the county, it will not address every broadband need in the county or region.

Phase 2 involves the county’s partnership with ETCOG to get input from count officials, stakeholders and interested parties to support the broadband action plan. The $536,000 plan received grant funding from the Economic Development Administration for $375,000 with a $161,000 local match shared among 14 counties and economic development corporations (EDC).

“We went to each of the county judges in the 14 county region and we asked them to appoint a local project identification team,” Cleveland said. The teams typically include county and city officials, EDC representatives and internet service providers (ISP).

The teams were tasked to identify three to five of the most important broadband development projects for their respective counties, Cleveland said. Five projects were ultimately identified locally and include four last-mile projects and one middle-mile project.

Cleveland explained that last-mile service is when fiber internet service is provided to homes or businesses, first-mile service typically starts at the ISP’s junction box and middle-mile service is “everything else in between.”

The five projects include Liberty City, Easton, Bar K Ranch at North Eastman Road in Longview, Gladewater and East Loop 281 in Longview. The estimated cost to complete the five projects is $2.6 million.

Phase 3 of the plan would undertake creation of a regional middle-mile network in partnership with ETCOG’s Regional Broadband Initiative. The goal of the network is to eliminate barriers that ISPs often encounter in the area, Cleveland said.

“It’s gonna address one very critical issue that we hear from our economic developers every single year and that’s that we lose existing business expansions in our county because all of our businesses do not have the broadband service that they need at the speed they need (and) at the rate they can afford,” Cleveland said.

The network will help close the gap the county has with urban areas, like Dallas and Houston, and ensure that all 14 counties have a foundation in place for full regional connectivity, Cleveland said.

Stoudt said he is worried about competition and asked if different ISPs would have access to the fiber-optic network. Cleveland said they will. Pct. 4 Commissioner Shannon Brown asked Cleveland for a time frame for the plan. Cleveland said if commissioners approve the plan at the next meeting, he expects it to be complete within two years.

The broadband plan includes four last-mile projects and one middle-mile project, the Easton project. 

Bar K Ranch at north Eastman Road in Longview — To provide fiber-optic high-speed internet to underserved and unserved businesses and place critical infrastructure in an area of expected longterm growth due to proximity of North Longview Business Park.

East Loop 281 in Longview — To provide fiber-optic high-speed internet to underserved and unserved businesses in an area of Loop 291 with sparse service.

Liberty City — To provide fiberoptic high-speed internet to underserved and unserved businesses in the Liberty City area.

Gladewater — To provide fiber-optic high-speed internet to underserved and unserved businesses along the Highway 80 corridor.

Easton — To provide middle-mile infrastructure for residential internet service providers, in an area that is largely underserved or unserved.

I'm Yoleyne Romero and my beat includes city/county government. I'm a graduate from The University of Texas at Tyler with a Bachelor's degree in Mass Communication. I have a dog named Okami that provides endless sunshine in my life.

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