Broadband Internet

In October of 2018 De Soto entered into a design-build contract agreement with RG Fiber of Baldwin City to build and operate a broadband fiber-to-the-home internet network throughout the City. The implementation of the project has experienced delays, causing concern and questions within the community. This page has been established as a source of reliable, timely information relating to the terms of the agreement and progress toward its completion.

Click Here for an interactive progress map of the project. This map will be updated weekly throughout the project, and includes locations of addresses where service is available and photographs of work locations. 

Click below for updates.

January 6, 2020 Progress Report

The immediate goal of this effort is to make internet services available to un-served areas of town, which lie primarily south of K-10 Highway. 

Unserved Areas

As part of the contract, RG Fiber has committed to making service available to the un-served areas by January 21, 2020. The agreement also requires RG Fiber to install a bank of seven conduits, (pictured below), four of which will be turned over to the City after completion. 

microduct

The deadline to complete the conduit bank was originally March 3, 2019, but this deadline was extended until November 30, 2019. The table below outlines all the deadlines in the contract and their original and extended completion dates.

Schedule

On September 19, 2019, the City Council acted to formally extend the deadline for the conduit bank installation from 9/10/2019 to 11/30/2019. The informational materials from that meeting are available here. The November 30th, 2019 deadline for conduit bank installation was not met by RG Fiber, so the City has been applying liquidated damages in the amount of $1000 per day since that time and will continue to do so until the conduits are installed, tested, and turned over to the City for ownership.