Baileys Harbor Approves Fiber Project Agreement

A competing company makes a pitch for a buried fiber network

The Baileys Harbor Town Board approved a fiber project agreement with internet service provider (ISP) Nsight Telservices during an Aug. 8 town board meeting. The agreement delineated Nsight’s and the town’s responsibilities for the upcoming broadband project, which will provide high-speed internet to every home and business within the town. 

“The fiber agreement handles the construction and where we all stand at the end of that,” said Bob Webb, Nsight’s vice president of IT services and innovative technical operations. 

Nsight will engineer the fiber-distribution network and establish a schedule for the project’s completion. It will also provide maps of in-town fiber routes, provide monthly progress reports, sell services to customers, and maintain or upgrade the network as necessary. 

The town is responsible for paying vendor and contractor invoices and processing all necessary applications, licenses and permits.

Together, Nsight and the town are responsible for obtaining any necessary permits, easements or allowances not solely granted by the town, as well as working together on tasks that don’t fall entirely within the responsibility of either party.

Next comes the service agreement, which the town’s Broadband Ad Hoc Committee will take up, the town attorney will examine and the town board will need to approve. 

“The service agreement would be until 2029, and it renews automatically” once it’s approved, Webb said.

The town had previously selected Nsight as its ISP partner, and together, they were successful in obtaining a $1.89 million Public Service Commission grant for the broadband project. 

Town Rejects Last-minute Proposal from Competing ISP

Nsight received some last-minute competition in the form of a pitch made Aug. 3 to the town’s Broadband Ad Hoc Committee from Bertram Communications (BC), located in Random Lake; and Door County Broadband (DCB), located in Baileys Harbor. BC purchased DCB in April, making Jim Bertram the new CEO and president.

Bertram made the 30-minute pitch with BC office administrator Sarah Lawrenz during a special Broadband Ad Hoc Committee meeting held prior to the committee’s regular meeting. Committee members asked a few questions, but they did not discuss the proposal or arrive at a decision either then or during their regular meeting immediately after.

During the town board meeting, before the board members approved the Nsight fiber agreement, a resident asked about the BC/DCB pitch. Town supervisor Peter Jacobs, who sits on the ad hoc committee, replied that changing ISPs could slow the momentum of the project. 

“We believe we’re on the cusp of completing this project in a timely manner,” Jacobs said. “If we delay, it won’t happen in a timely manner.”

Jacobs also said they feel more comfortable with Nsight being a long-established broadband company.

“They [BC/DCB] said a lot of nice things, but we don’t know if they can deliver,” Broadband Ad Hoc Committee member David Greco said during the town board meeting. 

BC/DCB Set Their Services Apart from Nsight

The pitch that BC/DCB made highlighted some differences from Nsight’s plans.

Nsight’s fiber would primarily be aerial or strung on poles, except in places where trenched, or buried cable, already existed. BC/DCB would bury all the fiber. In addition to aesthetic benefits, Bertram said that burying the fiber would save money on maintenance by avoiding internet outages due to storms, vehicle accidents or animal interference.

By choosing BC/DCB, he said the town would receive a “superior product.” That’s because most ISPs use GPON (gigabit passive optical network) in which fiber is shared among multiple customers, Lawrenz said. Each customer gets a set amount of gigabytes, and the ISP cannot give one customer more if they need it.

DCB uses an AONs (active optical networks), through which fiber goes to each customer individually, allowing customers to choose the type of service they want, Lawrenz said.

BC/DCB also said it would provide the infrastructure at the same cost as Nsight – $5.25 million is the current estimate – despite it being more expensive to bury fiber, and it would match Nsight’s contribution of $400,000 toward the project.