Page 36 - BusinessWest October 3, 2022

Technology
A New Gig
South Hadley Utility’s Fiber Business Is a Fast-developing Story
head of schedule and under budget.’ Those are the words that any business owner or board of directors would love to
hear regarding a specific project or under-
these days of soaring inflation, supply-chain issues, and a workforce crisis.
But that phrase can certainly be applied to the ongo- ing work of the South Hadley Electric Light Department (SHELD) to provide commercial and residential custom- ers in that community with fiber internet service, a proj- ect that had the additional challenge of being launched only months before the pandemic arrived in Western
By George O’Brien
‘A
Mass.
“In the last financial report we gave to the board, we
were under budget and ahead of the construction sched- ule,” said Sean Fitzgerald, SHELD’s general manager, not- ing that roughly 75% of the town now has fiber service, with the rest to be built out by July 2024.
The fiber program, which had been known as Fiber- sonic, has been rebranded as Fiberspring to avoid any potential problems with another internet provider using ‘sonic’ in its name, said Fitzgerald (more on this new name later). It now boasts more than 1,600 customers, including residents, businesses, municipal entities, pub- lic schools, and the majority of town departments, and to say the initiative has been successful and is turning some heads would be an understatement.
Indeed, the early success in South Hadley has led to
taking. They are not heard often, to be sure, and they are being heard even less frequently, if at all, in
SHELD General Manager Sean Fitzgerald
36 OCTOBER 3, 2022 TECHNOLOGY BusinessWest