They came to town with big plans and high hopes. “The communities that have this connectivity [high-speed fiber optic cable] in the future are going to prosper,” Daniel Limerick, president and CEO of RST Fiber Optics Networks, told 75 people on May 14, 2014, during one of three meetings in the Renaissance Centre. “Wake Forest is going to be our show place,” Limerick said. “I can’t wait until we get this completed.”
When it is complete, Limerick said, people who experience the high-speed connection at home in town and then go to Raleigh to work will say, I’ve got to work out of my home. “The value of your home [with the fiber connection] will go up $5,000 to $7,000.”
But by June of this year The Shelby Star newspaper reported that RST had experienced outages in Shelby [headquarters for RST and its first full installation] lasting up to four days. Service has since been restored, but the newspaper also revealed no one is answering phone calls at RST headquarters, the office staff has been fired and the company is involved in a lawsuit with one of its founders.
Following these latest revelations, Wake Forest officials say they have officially closed the door on the town’s relationship with RST. An initiative that was expected to earn Wake Forest the distinction as one of the Triangle’s first gigabit communities has been put on hold.
“We are extremely disappointed that RST will be unable to fulfill its promise of delivering gigabit-speed Internet service to our residents,” said Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell. “Still, we are keeping our options open and are continuing to work with other potential service providers.”
O’Donnell added that the fiber network already laid by RST is extremely valuable and will likely be an attractive incentive to other high-speed internet providers considering Wake Forest.
The start was promising. In April 2014 RST began installing a high-speed fiber network in strategic areas around town. The company also announced a pricing structure and pre-signed over 2,500 Wake Forest residents for the service. At the time, RST officials said they planned to provide gigabit Internet service (1,000 MB per second) to Wake Forest homes and businesses, possibly as early as August or September 2014. Instead, the date kept getting pushed back and the initiative which started with so much promise began to appear in jeopardy.
In early fall RST successfully installed conduit from downtown Wake Forest to Raleigh. Considered the backbone of the fiber installation, the installment of the underground lines was interpreted as a good sign the initiative was back on track.
However, a four-month delay in receiving permission from the Corps of Engineers to cross the Neuse River on Old Falls of Neuse Road prompted RST to pull its crews out of Wake Forest and send them to work in Charlotte.
At the time, RST’s CEO said he expected the company to complete its work in Charlotte by early December and then return to Wake Forest. But they never did. In late 2014 RST announced it was postponing work in Wake Forest in hopes of securing new financial investments.
Following several futile attempts to obtain answers from RST officials this year, town officials began preparing for the worst by once again reaching out to other service providers.
A different service provider may be able to purchase the infrastructure in the ground worth $4 to $5 million, which includes the 14-mile trunk line from Wake Forest to Departure Drive in Raleigh, the six miles of trunk line going north toward Henderson, and the cable laid in two Wake Forest subdivisions.
The town never had a contract with RST though town officials cooperated with the company which has over 3,000 miles of a fiber network through North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.
Members of the town’s staff and the town’s Technology Advisory Board are reaching out to other providers. CenturyLink is providing fiber cable service to new subdivisions such as Traditions and Holding Village, and Windstream provides that service in Heritage.
