HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Sullivan County’s broadband LDC has been working since 2020 on a wireless internet initiative. The initiative will provide broadband internet to wide swathes of the county, broadcast through its public cell towers.

A recently announced partnership will run alongside that initiative, working with cutting-edge wired technology.

Archtop Fiber is a newly formed fiber internet and phone company setting up shop in the Hudson Valley. Headquartered in Kingston, Archtop plans to invest up to $350 million to reach over 500,000 homes and businesses throughout the county.

While Archtop has not announced as of now the planned speed of its network, it plans to use a “100%-fiber XGS PON network.” XGS PON technology can support uploads of up to 10 gigabytes per second and download speeds, according to viavisolutions.com/en-us/xgs-pon, that are much faster than traditional broadband infrastructure.

County legislator Mike Brooks introduced the county’s partnership with Archtop at an August 4 meeting of the Upper Delaware Council.

Archtop approached the county after hearing about the county LDC’s broadband initiative, said Brooks. After talking with the county, the company plans to focus its initial development in Sullivan County, particularly along the western end of the county.

The county legislature approved a resolution on August 18 authorizing the legislature’s chairman Rob Doherty or county manager Josh Potosek to sign a contract with Archtop.

Explaining that authorization during the August edition of the Let’s Talk Sullivan podcast, Brooks said that the county’s partnership with Archtop will open up future sources of funding for broadband internet initiatives. The county as a government agency can tap into sources of funding that Archtop as a private entity cannot, and vice-versa; “Working together for that common goal, it’s attractive and it’s a great way to be able to tap into some of this grant money that is becoming available.”

The public-private partnership will help provide high-speed internet access to as much of Sullivan County as possible, officials said. The broadband LDC’s wireless connections can more easily cover the regions within reach of the county’s public cell towers, where Archtop can bring fibre-based connections directly to people’s homes, particularly in areas that the county’s broadband LDC would find harder to reach.

“We will have a county that will have state-of-the-art communications infrastructure,” said Brooks. “And that’s just huge for Sullivan County, especially when you take into consideration the geographic limitations, if you will, or challenges that we have to make this happen.”