The city of Ocean Shores conducted a town hall meeting Monday night to announce the arrival of HyperFiber and their commitment and plans to offer every home and business high speed fiber optic internet service.

Mayor Frank Elduen, alongside City Administrator Scott Andersen, moderated the town hall that featured three representatives of HyperFiber — President and CEO Dan Kennedy, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Construction Matt Myers and Washington Market Manager Lorie Hills.

“(Hills) is the one who contacted us, and talked to us about the opportunities that HyperFiber can bring to the city,” said Mayor Elduen. “It was pretty exciting for Scott (Andersen) and I to listen and so we wanted to make that available for the public to listen and ask questions and such.”

Kennedy discussed the importance of having a symbiotic relationship with the community as they develop a new customer base.

“We’re a company that builds fiber to the home here in the United States. I’ve been doing this for a little over 30 something years,” Kennedy said. “Actually learned how to do this in the military. We, today, are in several states in the Southeast and Midwest and logically expanding our presence throughout the United States. When we build out a community like this our goal is to try to do everything up front and work with cities to put the best foot forward when we do this. We’re here to sign up as many customers as we can and the worst thing we can do is have a bad relationship with the city and certainly a bad relationship with the community.”

HyperFiber plans to offer 1 GB download and upload speeds at $85 per month. Currently, the main internet provider in Ocean Shores is Coast Communications and their 1 GB packages run $155 per month for residential and $230 for businesses that provide free WiFi to their customers. CenturyLink, which does offer internet service in Ocean Shores, offers 3 Mbps download speeds at $55. According to HyperFiber’s FAQ, “GIG for Life Pricing is our exclusive offer that guarantees your monthly rate stays the same for life when you select the 1 GIG plan.”

“A lot of our speeds start at 500 meg and go up to two gigs and you get that at pretty much the same rate that you’re going to get from any other provider,” Kennedy said. “Nationally, the majority of our customers take our highest tier. It’s very attractive because of the service level that it offers to the consumer.”

Ed Hewson, the owner of Coast Communications, issued the following statement:

“My family has owned and operated Coast Communications, one of Grays Harbor’s longest running family-owned businesses, where we have provided Internet, Telephone, Cable TV, and most of all incredible local customer service for nearly 58 years. My father and his two partners all climbed poles and strung the first cables. Coast was one of the first locations in the nation to bring in high-speed internet service in the 1990s, and we have continued to increase speeds and offer excellent value ever since. We have 15 technicians, managers, and customer service professionals who are all dedicated to giving our customers in Ocean Shores and the North Beach same-day service 99% of the time. Coast also provides a local office if our customers just want to walk-in to talk about their needs, or reach the office locally by phone. I don’t believe any out-of-town provider could ever duplicate the local service we offer, and would especially never try to reach all the out-of-the-way neighborhoods we have built to over those nearly 60 years. The new guys in town would most likely stop constructing once the easy to reach homes and businesses had been connected, and if they were the only operator in town that would leave many of our customers unserved. In all of our service locations we already offer 1 Gig internet service, and already offer fiber-to-the-home in the majority of Seabrook, and we are well on our way to offering similar speeds and products to the rest of our service area including Ocean Shores. Our speeds are increasing to similar levels to what the new guys propose and we are already connected to the entire community’s homes, and we haven’t raised our internet prices in over a decade. We are proud that our customer service can’t be matched. In addition, Coast Communications has and will continue to support other local businesses, schools and nonprofits in the area as we believe that community support is a two-way street. For those reasons, we hope that a new, non-local company from the East Coast would choose to invest their money into a different town that is less well-served. Our dedication to bringing the best value and services to our customers remains our No. 1 priority, and we will remain dedicated to staying the kind of ‘Awesome and Local’ business that The Beach has always preferred.”

In order for HyperFiber to offer this service to the residents and businesses of Ocean Shores, miles of fiber optic cable will have to be installed throughout the city, which means digging along roadways and on private property. Kennedy said that HyperFiber will roll out a comprehensive communication plan to inform residents.

“As we grow and build out, I will tell you, I (will) jump on this sword right up front, we will be disruptive to the community,” Kennedy said. “That means you’re going to see trucks and vehicles and things in your yard but we proactively have a group that stays in front of that, you have direct numbers to call for everything that goes on plastered all over everything, you’ll be communicated through mail, you’ll have a big digital presence that communicates exactly what we do.”

Myers echoed Kennedy’s sentiments regarding the disruptive nature of installing fiber optic cable in a community.

“It’s definitely intrusive. We’re going to hit some sprinklers,” Myers said. “I’m not sure everyone understands the utility easement and the right of way. A lot of times it extends behind the sidewalk and comes up into the yard a little bit, and those are people’s yards, flower beds, and we understand it. We need brand ambassadors and advocates to help us explain that we’re going to fix that.”

HyperFiber plans a two-phase approach starting with close to 3,700 single family homes in Phase 1, and then multi-family dwellings and businesses in Phase 2. According to the HyperFiber presentation, the company’s minimum community investment in this project is $5.3 million, with no cost to the city of Ocean Shores. The company is also promising to “replace, restore and regrow” as it installs its fiber optic cable.

The company, which is headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri, plans to use a combination of familiar contractors as well as local labor.

“The contractors that we have we’ve been working with for a very long time, but we also hire local, that’s extremely important to us,” Kennedy said. “The dollars we drive in the community is one thing but the relationships that make us successful are what we do here.”

Myers added that the hiring wheels are already in motion.

“We’re going to hire local engineering partners to the best of our ability,” Myers said. “Washington is an expensive market to build. I’ve already hired a local construction manager south of Seattle, we’ll put another one in place, especially in market, hire local market managers to be our liaison to the community.”

According to Kennedy, HyperFiber will allow users to connect numerous devices with no loss of connectivity or speed.

“The newer equipment today allows for better coverage, more thorough coverage in your home at higher speeds. That’s really the name of the game,” Kennedy said. “As you (have) multiple devices in your home that want to connect you’re going to see that we give you exactly what we say we’re going to do.”

Residents attending the town hall in person and online had the opportunity to ask questions and offer comments. Questions ranged from the highly technical, trench depth, water tables and drainage ditches to monthly rates, installation costs and environmental impacts.

HyperFiber plans on utilizing Grays Harbor PUD’s backhaul network to supply the bandwidth necessary to fuel their fiber optic internet service. The company says it will pay for any necessary equipment upgrades.

“We just met with the PUD prior to coming here. PUD has a pretty large network that will be able to have a redundancy in here,” Kennedy said. “We’ll pay for the gear to upgrade it, or we’ll pay for the associated redundancy we need, some of it may have to be built, some of it may exist, we always prefer it (to exist). What they’re representing to us is that they have the capacity or the bandwidth we need.”

Aaron Mefford, the Grays Harbor PUD core services director, said working with HyperFiber will be similar to arrangements with other telecommunications companies.

“The PUD offers what we call a dark fiber model. We lease fiber optic cables that we have left over from the many projects that we have to inter-tie our PUD communications throughout Grays Harbor,” Mefford said. “The PUD has been operating a dark fiber model for the last 20-25 years. We partner with a lot of the different telecommunications companies. We’re excited to work with HyperFiber. It does seem like they’re really doing their due diligence on looking into what it would take to serve the different communities in Grays Harbor.”

HyperFiber is planning on starting its design phase next week, and after working through permitting and other procedures hopes to have shovels in the ground within 90 days, and their first customers online within six months.

The company promises no installation fees and no contract. It will offer new customers $200 toward contract cancellation fees with existing providers. HyperFiber is looking to work with 22 cities between Ocean Shores and Seattle.