By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
MVT was recently recognized as a nationally Certified Gig-Capable Provider by NTCA-The Rural Broadband Associaton. This designation was earned for MVT’s deployment of gigabit broadband speeds in its service area. This means that the company has built a network capable of delivering Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, which is 100 times faster than currently available in most U.S. households.
The NTCA is the premier association representing nearly 900 independent, community-based telecommunications companies in rural and small town America.
“We are proud to be named the first Certified Gig-Capable provider in Nevada and are committed to delivering cutting-edge technologies and services to our community,” said Brad Lyon, President of MVT.
To achieve certification, a company must show that gigabit technology is currently commercially available within 95% of one or more census blocks. MVT currently is providing the technology to about a half dozen census block-sized neighborhoods in its service area including areas like Lake Valley Estates, Country Lane Estates, Robison Farm Road, the Lillian Condie Rd neighborhood in Overton and others.
The high speed of 1 gigabit per second, made available to large blocks of customers in this way, requires cutting edge fiber optic lines being installed into those neighborhoods. Lyon said that this type of service is considered state of the art in the industry.
“When you hear about Google installing gigabit fiber in urban areas, this is what it is talking about,” Lyon said. “That’s the top of the line of what is being offered out there.”
Currently, a full fiber optic connection is available to only about 10 percent of the MVT customers. But Lyon said that, in its long term planning, MVT will be expanding that reach.
“Adding fiber optic connection to these neighborhoods has satisfied the requirement to receive this certification,” Lyon said. “But it is our goal to eventually get all of our customers throughout the valley on a fiber connection. It will take some time, but we have a plan to gradually get there.”
As part of its 10-year plan to build out its fiber optic network, MVT plans to bring fiber to the home availability to 95% of its customer base by 2026. This will put MVT in a good position to service any future need that might come along for the community.
“With the expansion at Apex that is going on, this will be good for the community,” Lyon said. “The people who work in those high tech companies will view this community as a viable option to live in. Having reliable, fast fiber connection will mean that they can work from home and so it will make it even more attractive for them to move to this area.”
In addition, MVT has plenty of capacity to accommodate technology companies and other industries that might be interested in locating to the Moapa Valley community if that opportunity should ever arise, Lyon said.
“We have adequate capacity and the redundancy that is needed in our system,” Lyon saids. “We are in good shape for the foreseeable future.”
Offering gigabit connections is a far cry from where MVT started when it began offering internet service in the 1990s. In those days of dial-up internet, the company began with a 6 MB connection in to Las Vegas to service the entire Moapa Valley community.
