Region’s Internet getting faster

Friday, Oct. 5, 2007

After two and a half years of living in Newburg, he is finally going to be able to get high-speed Internet without paying for a satellite system.

Comcast Cable is extending its lines in the Cliffton on the Potomac subdivision.

Cable is one thing, but broadband access is long-anticipated in the neighborhood.

Comcast is working all over Southern Maryland to get cable access to areas that have not been served in the past, according to an e-mail from Aimee Metrick, the company’s director of public relations.

The Maryland Broadband Cooperative has been working with companies such as Comcast and Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative to bring access where there was none.

Ellen Flowers-Fields, director of regional economic development for the Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland, said progress is right on schedule for bringing high-speed Internet to the rural parts of the state.

Flowers-Fields is working with the Maryland Broadband Cooperative to deliver Internet connectivity to all the parts of Southern Maryland that need it.

‘‘The project as a whole is moving along quite well, ahead of schedule and on budget,” she said. The group has been working to identify where fiber-optic cable already exists but is being used for different purposes. Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, for instance, has some fiber-optic cable in the ground for use between substations, but Flowers-Fields said the broadband cooperative hopes to tap into it to bring high speed to residents.

Thomas Dennison, SMECO spokesperson, said the co-op is working with the MBC on the project, which will probably result in the fiber-optic cable being leased by the MBC. Dennison said the cable is used as form of communication between substations.

Also, some of the cable that is in the ground is not ‘‘lit,” meaning it’s not being used or hooked into a system.

‘‘Progress for Southern Maryland is very hopeful,” Flowers-Fields said. ‘‘It won’t take long before customers are able to see a marked difference.”

Requests for interviews with Comcast received no response, but Metrick said in e-mails that this year, the company has been able to add service to Hidden Valley in Charles County, areas of Hughesville and North Beach and Chesapeake Beach in Calvert County. The Calvert areas were acquired in 2006 from Metrocast, the e-mail said, so the company completed a ‘‘million dollar investment in upgrading technology ...”

The expanded coverage was announced in Cliffton by cards placed on doorknobs, and although Davis was still in Afghanistan with the U.S. Air Force at the time, he was excited to find out about it.

Davis has been vocal about the issue, attending Charles County Cable Advisory Commission meetings whenever he could since 2005, researching the requirements to get high-speed in the area. The front section of Cliffton has had cable for some time, but the back section has been without.

Davis said he weighed several options when it came to getting better Internet service, but found them to be either too expensive or not sufficient for his Internet needs. He learned about the franchise agreement that Comcast has with the county, and found out that the back section of Cliffton fell under the requirements.

‘‘I got the plots for Cliffton,” he said, from the county, and found that there were 65 houses in the section. ‘‘That meets the franchise agreement.”

He presented that information to the cable commission in November, and the company that is laying the new lines told Davis the neighborhood should be surfing the Internet by this November.