News : iVinton Continues to move forward in the plans to bring Broadband to Vinton

VMEU (Vinton Municipal Electric Utility) continues to move forward into the planning and approval stages of the iVinton project.

During the meeting the total sign ups were 479 people through the www.iVinton.com. These residents have agreed to have the conduit (think of it like pipes) run to your house so that if later you decide to sign up for the broadband services that will be offered in approximately July-August, they will simply be able to slide the fiber right into the conduit and connect it to your house.

Perhaps you might think, not this year but next year I'll sign up for the service, you should STILL sign up to get the conduit run to your house.

If you have a business, be sure to have it run there as well. If you have a rental property, have it run there. If you have an empty house just sitting there that you aren't using right now, have it run there...it doesn't cost you a dime!

However...if you don't it could cost you later to get this done!

The map for the city and the colored zones can be seen here.

Kim Meyer of the VMEU Board assured everyone that her Zone would be the first to have everyone sign up before the rest of the zones, so I'm just warning you, she's not messing around!

In all seriousness, it would be in everyone's best interest to sign up to have the conduit added to your property. If you are selling your house later, that will be a great selling point is that it is ready for service.

By the end of the meeting two more people had registered bringing the total to 481*.

Altogether there are approximately 2,000 residential homes that need to be connected and about 220 businesses.

Right now 49 businesses have registered and 432 residences have signed up. We are ahead of the number of expected registrations at this point, which is great news!

This is just a friendly reminder to sign up at www.iVinton.com so that the techs can figure out the best place to run the conduit and the best place to hook it to your house.Generally lines would be run where the electricity enters the house, but this may not be the best location, so techs will assess that when they check your property.

It's a great way to save some money in the future, and one less thing to worry about, you'll be ready!

To recap, the iVinton project will be offering the following services: phone (a landline service called voip which would run on the internet, unlike a traditional landline, this would also go down should the power go out), tv and broadband internet.

The plan is to have pricing out by the end of July at which time you can decide the services that you would be interested in.

*Editor's note:

This number is probably no longer accurate as it continues to grow!

Originally there were some readers that signed up for the service outside of Vinton, with notes begging and pleading to be included which messed up the original total...iVinton really wishes they could include you, but they can't. (You silly people are messing with the "official" headcount! Not that it matters, if you aren't in the area you'll be weeded out, but it does cause more work for someone to figure that out) For those of us curious about how many more need to sign up, you're messing with our heads!

HOWEVER, write a letter to the editor voicing your concern at being left out...you never know, someone might be listening and work on that for you!