Gateway Fiber planning to serve Northampton

You may have seen commercials or articles touting Gateway Fiber’s plans to bring high speed fiber optic internet to Northampton. You may have also been wondering why our coalition has been silent on this. It was mainly because we had lots of questions but no easy way to get answers to them. That changed last Thursday when we participated in a meeting with Gateway Fiber and the city. Now we at least feel informed.

Gateway Fiber is a small company based in Missouri that has found a market in doing this for small towns and cities. Northampton will be the first city in Massachusetts to be served by the company. It promises fiber to the home with megabit and gigabit per second speeds for a reasonably low price starting at $65/month. It has already invested money in planning for a rollout.

Apparently the city can’t say no. Our coalition welcomes their interest. Does this mean the city might not create a municipal network? Right now, we don’t know. However, we went over with Gateway Fiber a lot of our concerns about net neutrality (now officially required again), privacy and subsidies for lower income households. They said that they would observe all Net Neutrality rules, now that the FCC has reinstated them. They also said they never share customer information outside of their company. We impressed upon them that these are both very important to Northampton residents. They also said they were working on a reduced fee service in the $35-$45 range (with reduced bandwidth) for lower income residents who qualify for government low income programs. We applaud that effort and we also requested a no fee option as well for those who couldn’t afford even that lower cost option. They said they would look into it, but made no promises. We also requested they look into support for Northampton Open Media as part of their community outreach that they say they always engage in for each community they provide services to. Right now they are looking for a space to host a central fiber hub and asked the city to help with the logistics.

The company repeatedly emphasized their commitment to maintaining a highly available network and fast and friendly customer service. If true, then for many of us, this will be a big change from Comcast. They don’t plan to nickel and dime subscribers but to deliver a consistent service. They don’t plan to bury cables underground due to the rocky soil and the substantially higher costs, but they might in certain neighborhoods where it already exists and where the number of subscribers looks high. It’s much faster and cheaper to provide optical fiber to the home from a pole, in most cases. There won’t be any caps on uploading or downloading. The main pricing constraint is the maximum upload and download speed that the customer is willing to pay for. Their pricing looks competitive and in most cases is likely to be a better deal compared to Comcast internet services.

We asked, if everything went perfectly, how long until their first customer in Northampton gets service? They said by the end of 2024, although early 2025 is more realistic. 

What can you do to show your interest? Click on the Check Availability button on their website. Or call them at 888-201-4339 Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 5 PM and tell them your interest in subscribing to their service when it’s available. Also, spread the word among your neighbors. The more who show an interest in a neighborhood, the likelier your neighborhood will get wired sooner rather than later.