“We’re building fiber internet the way it is supposed to be built.”
Visionary Broadband has added hundreds of miles of fiber internet in communities across Wyoming since January 1, 2023. From CEO Brian Worthen, “Even with the historic snowfall in Wyoming, we are going block by block to bring quality fiber internet to homes and businesses. Our teams worked through a 100-inch snow winter to bring our signature Figure-8 ring system to Casper, Gillette, and other communities. We’re building reliable internet that will last for decades with the capacity to expand without additional construction.”
Visionary is investing in fiber internet in the intermountain west because fiber internet is the most reliable internet technology available today. Fiber internet is a superior technology because it offers faster upload speeds than both DSL and cable internet. Fiber internet does not contain any copper wire (like that found in coaxial cable), so your connection won’t get interrupted by weather or electrical interference. Fiber internet is an individualized, point-to-point connection, which means your neighbor’s usage won’t affect your speeds. It is a scalable technology that can add more capacity without additional digging. Customers can increase speeds by gigabytes by simply updating their modems once they are on fiber internet.
The most critical element of Visionary’s fiber build is the reliability created by our Figure-8 ring system. This is a two-ring system that runs from Gillette to Billings to Casper to Cheyenne to Denver and then back to Gillette. The Figure-8 ring system is the backbone of better fiber networks and it is not widely available, especially in Wyoming. After developing the larger system, we are now connecting communities to the Figure-8 system. Casper, Gillette, Douglas, Wright, and Cheyenne are the first markets to have this infrastructure. The fiber internet rings are two 100-gig rings coming into and out of each community, which creates significant network capacity and ensures that the network runs if something happens to one of the rings. Building fiber internet in this manner is future-proofing communities – these communities will not have to dig this infrastructure back up in 10 or 20 years. Instead, they will have peace of mind knowing their Internet will be fast and they won’t experience the downtimes they have had with other services and technology.
“This is expensive and most internet companies have avoided investing in this level of technology because of the price tag. As a Wyoming company, we think it is important to build this technology infrastructure because we know what it is like to live and work here. That’s what we mean when we say we do hard things. We want to connect individuals and communities that have been overlooked in the digital age. We have been doing this since 1994, we know what is available and have chosen to invest and build the best for our neighbors across the intermountain west.” said Worthen.