Since the early inception of the neighborhood, Highlands Fiber Network (HFN) has strived to provide residents of Issaquah Highlands with incredible service offerings at a remarkable value.
HFN was one of the first adopters of a true fiber to the home (FTTH) network in the early 2000s, when other regional competitors were still offering dialup speeds. In 2011, HFN was one of the first to launch a fully symmetrical gigabit speed offering, and in 2015, it continued to provide great value to our residents by being one of the first to offer the gig service for under $100/month.
The HFN Board of Directors, along with our partners at Isofusion and Cannon, have endeavored over the past years to continue to evaluate future progressions of the network in an effort to keep it at the forefront of the industry nationwide.
It was becoming increasingly evident that the FTTH industry as a whole was shifting away from the active ethernet style that HFN adopted in the 2000s and moving towards a Passive Optical Network (PON) style architecture. The writing was on the wall that HFN needed to make some rather large changes, and we have spent the past few years weighing potential options (and figuring out how to pay for it).
The board had some very strict guidelines for this network transformation, and it wanted to accomplish the following:
• Increase network reliability. Different equipment vendors means that not all our equipment talks to each other, making some of our troubleshooting take longer than it should.
• Future proof the network. Don’t spend money on a solution that will be obsolete in the near future.
• Continue to provide great service for a great value. We’ve seen an incredible increase in costs in nearly every aspect of our lives: at the pump, the grocery store, restaurants, rent, you name it—costs are skyrocketing. Could we build out this new network without the need to raise rates?
We’re excited to announce that we have found a solution that will accomplish all our stated goals, and we have begun installing some of the equipment in our data centers already. This is a HUGE undertaking that will likely take us over three years to complete.
As a result, every home in Issaquah Highlands will need to have its equipment replaced. This will also require HFN to update the fiber drop in about one-third of the homes to a type that is compatible with the new PON equipment.
In total, we’re looking at over 4,000 appointments to replace customer gear and over 387,000 feet of fiber to be placed, in addition to completely reworking all the equipment in our data centers.
In all, this decision will:
• Increase network reliability. The new equipment will give HFN and our support teams more insight and troubleshooting than we’ve ever had before. It will notify our support teams of any network issues, and they can begin with a fix before the resident even knows there is a problem.
• Future proof the network. The equipment we are purchasing will be compatible with the next-generation offerings. Equipment capable of 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) today will easily morph into 50 Gbps in the coming years.
• Continue to provide great service for a great value. The only thing that HFN plans to raise in the near future is everyone’s connection speed by 2.5 times! Once migrated onto the PON network, our customers with 10 megabits per second (Mbps) will receive 25 Mbps and 100 Mbps will increase to 250 Mbps. Our gigabit customers will go to 2.5 Gbps with no increase in the monthly rate. This is an incredible value for our residents compared to the national averages, especially when considering upload speeds.
Be on the lookout in the coming weeks and months as our marketing team will begin sharing details of the rollout schedule, exciting features that come with the new gear, and how to schedule an upgrade of the equipment in your home.
* Planned upgrades currently for covenant homes only. HFN plans to revisit service offerings for those living in the apartment communities once this initial upgrade has been completed.
Average internet speeds through the years.
Jeremy Fallt is the HFN general manager and a Westridge resident.
