City of Lavonia Receives Results of Broadband Study

Lavonia City Fathers are looking at several options in their effort to determine whether the City should offer broadband service to citizens.

In the spring, Lavonia hired Iron Grid Networks out of Commerce to conduct a survey and do a feasibility study on offering broadband service.

The feasibility study collected more than 580 responses from their survey and developed a system design and conceptual cost estimates from the results.

The survey results showed that 77% of respondents requested faster internet speeds.

While 40 Mbps was the average speed from collected tests, 53% of respondents had less than 25 Mbps and only 20% had speeds above 50 Mbps.

75% of respondents requested better pricing.

46% of respondents agreed they are willing to pay more than they currently pay.

Most of those who responded paid an average of $100 a month for Internet service.

Less than a third of survey respondents requested better reliability or better customer support.

And over 100 respondents (20%) offered to become an advocate in the community should the project prove feasible.

System design and conceptual cost estimates were developed from the results of the survey data. Both fixed wireless and fiber delivery were evaluated.

Iron Grid looked at both fixed wireless and fiber delivery.

City Manager Charles Cawthon said the survey has given the City several options to look at, whether to offer fiber-optic service to Lavonia and Gumlog residents or offer fixed wireless service to Lavonia citizens only or do both.

According to the study, the fiber optic network would serve an estimated 928 customers in the City of Lavonia and Gumlog while the wireless bandwidth delivery option would service just the City of Lavonia.

Cawthon said the next step is for the City Council and Mayor to meet with the Iron Grid representative in a future work session.

So far, no date has been announced for that work session.