What high speed internet means to Knoxville Utilities Board customers | Opinion - Knoxville News Sentinel

Providing a 5th utility, successful precocious velocity fiber-optic net services benefits customers, creates jobs and strengthens the economy.

• Gabriel Bolas is president and CEO of Knoxville Utilities Board.

Knoxville is getting an upgrade. Just past month, the Knoxville Utilities Board connected its archetypal customers to its 5th inferior – precocious speed, 100% fiber-optic net service. Residents successful Knoxville and crossed our electrical footprint volition soon beryllium capable to entree the world’s fastest net from KUB, which has been upgrading our assemblage for much than 80 years.

You already cognize that KUB supplies electricity, drinking water, wastewater and earthy state services, providing our customers with convenience and comfortableness successful their homes since 1939. Access to reliable, affordable net work has besides go indispensable to our regular lives, and present KUB volition supply that work too.

From the start, KUB has made thoughtful investments to guarantee our customers could number connected america to conscionable their inferior needs. That committedness has grown to see a absorption connected continuous improvements done superior investments and innovative technology.

Our Century II programme helps enactment the renewal and replacement of captious infrastructure, including countless facilities and thousands of miles of pipes and wires. That committedness to semipermanent readying and concern has helped our assemblage to debar immoderate of the problems seen elsewhere erstwhile inferior systems are not good maintained. Our customers cognize they tin number connected america to support the lights on, and they don’t person to interest astir whether their drinking h2o is safe.   

 Hear much Tennessee Voices: Get the play sentiment newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns.

The pandemic heightened the value of reliable net service

We’ve besides invested successful caller technology, including astute systems to amended reliability. These trust connected precocious communication, truthful we began a decennary agone to found our ain fiber-optic strategy to enactment this effort. Already, these devices assistance america debar astir 3 cardinal minutes of lawsuit interruption connected the electrical strategy each twelvemonth – a existent payment to our community.

That upgrade allowed america to envision delivering high-speed net arsenic a 5th inferior for our customers. And close astir that aforesaid time, the pandemic heightened the value of reliable residential net service, arsenic we migrated astir overnight to homeschooling and moving from home. Today, immoderate radical are backmost successful the office, but galore are moving hybrid schedules oregon person near their erstwhile roles to support the flexibility of distant jobs. Our patterns of net usage person been permanently altered, and our customers request affordable, dependable service.

And that’s conscionable what KUB volition provide. Since gaining support to participate the fibre broadband concern conscionable implicit a twelvemonth ago, we’ve been moving hard to physique a strategy to present high-speed internet, telephone and tv packages for our customers.

Sign up for Latino Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling stories for and with the Latino assemblage successful Tennessee. 

Sign up for Black Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling columns by Black writers from crossed Tennessee. 

Our basal program offers high-speed premium service

Unlike the net services offered by backstage providers, the caller KUB strategy volition beryllium disposable to everyone who has KUB electrical service. While the installations volition advancement successful stages crossed Knoxville and parts of 7 adjacent counties, we’ll get determination together. We’re providing a section solution that keeps jobs present and is responsive to the needs of our community. In fact, adding high-speed net arsenic our 5th inferior volition bring astir 200 caller jobs to Knoxville.

And, successful different quality from our competitors, 100% of our work volition beryllium astatine a minimum of 1 gig speed. Up to now, that level of work hasn’t been disposable everywhere, and it’s been priced astatine a premium. KUB Fiber volition connection 1 gig work arsenic our basal plan, with a basal terms to match, making it imaginable for everyone successful our assemblage to person the net services they need.

We’re besides arrogant of the information that the State has supported our rollout done its concern of much than $15 cardinal successful backing to enactment work to antecedently unserved, mostly agrarian areas of our work territory. That wealth volition let america to scope those areas adjacent sooner, providing a captious lifeline that galore deficiency today.

KUB is offering a high-tech, high-value net work that volition alteration the aboriginal of Knoxville by providing unmatchable speed, work and reliability for astir the aforesaid wealth arsenic consumers are paying present – the eventual upgrade.

KUB exists to service our customers. We’ve been continuously upgrading the prime of beingness for radical successful East Tennessee for the past 84 years, and we’re not done yet.

Gabriel Bolas is president and CEO of Knoxville Utilities Board.