Representatives of Surf Internet presented a plaque to the Warsaw Common Council and mayor Monday night to congratulate them on becoming a “Gig City” with Surf Internet.
Before the council meeting, Jordan Holzwart, regional market manager for Surf Internet, said Surf is about halfway done with their build in the city. To commemorate that, Surf presented a plaque to the city.
“Really, it’s just to celebrate our partnership with the city,” he said.
“We actually have symmetrical speed so it’s gigabyte upload and download, but we do have up to 8 gigabytes available in Warsaw,” Holzwart said.
Scott Franko, Surf Internet director of business development, said, “That Gig City is sort of the standard. That’s like a term, and being that fiber is the future, that’s the only way you get the symmetrical gig speed like he was talking about. This is kind of our appreciation evening to say, ‘Hey, thanks for working together. Through partnership, you’re letting your residents enjoy the benefits of fiber connectivity versus other means of broadband.’ That’s what we’ve been doing for 25 years, so the markets that we work with, we’re bringing residents the opportunity to have super-high speed broadband so that they’re prepared for the future, technology of the future. So this is our thanks for working together.”
He said they started the process about a year ago of working with Warsaw to bring Surf Internet to the city.
To the council, Holzwart said Surf Internet has swiftly made some infrastructure in the city within the last six months or so and was there to provide an update on where they’re at with the build, as well as present a plaque.
Surf’s areas are split into serving areas when they’re doing construction. They’ve completed six with six more to go.
“Right now, we have 1,601 homes and businesses ready, available, live for our service here in town. Doing pretty well with working through some of the residents. Door-to-door has been a great success for us, and also our normal call center and online presence,” Holzwart said.
Over 30% of Surf’s customers are signing up with their 2 gigabit packages and higher.
“What that really means to you guys is, that is the fastest internet that was available to residential customers once we brought it in. To see a third of those customers go with those higher packages, just kind of shows that residents were waiting for a higher speed capability like fiber can bring. They’re taking advantage of those higher speeds,” he stated.
A few customers are even on the 8 gigabit package. A new 5 gig has taken off, which started in May.
“On the flipside, too, 14% of our customers have been going with our $30 package, so we have a package that is lower speeds, but serves a lot of customers. What that means is there’s quite a few residents out there saving money and just being more efficient with their internet costs,” Holzwart said.
Surf’s services are all no-contract, so no residents will be under contract and the price is locked in for life.
“We feel like we bring a great local value to the residents here, and, hopefully, our partnership so far has worked out very well and we appreciate that,” he said, then presenting a plaque to the mayor and council for being one of Surf’s “Gig Cities.”
“Warsaw is one of our Gig Cities, and that is one of our markets that we partnered with to bring in at least gigabit speeds or higher. Again, 8 gigabits is available here. But (the plaque) is just a token of our appreciation and partnership,” Holzwart said.
Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins asked if they were strictly residential service. Holzwart said it’s available to businesses, also, but are primarily residential.
“Even though we’re halfway done with our build, we are really never done building. We’ve already identified three to five more neighborhoods that were asking for our service during this whole part, so we’ll continue to even do construction into those new areas,” he said.
Dobbins asked if Surf was near the downtown area, and Holzwart said they were. “We’re a few blocks from City Hall. There’s a business fiber company downtown at this moment, so we kind of try to stay out of their way and just be effective with the funds that are being spent to make sure primarily residents are covered. But we have had a few folks from the City Hall request our service, so we have put in some quotes to see what that looks like,” he said.
To find out if Surf Internet is available, Holzwart suggested a person go to their website at surfinternet.com