Northwoods Connect Case Study
Northwoods Connect partners with Millennium Geospatial to Build New Fiber Networks in Northern Wisconsin
The Challenge
Northwoods Connect is a telecommunications company located in Rhinelander, WI and the Oneida County area.
Northwoods Connect knows how important internet connectivity is for families and communities.
In order to provide internet services to this underserved area, the company needed to connect to a new cell tower in the area.
Specifically, Northwoods Connect wanted to utilize fiber optic technology due to its reliability and speed.
The Approach
Northwoods Connect learned about Millennium Geospatial - an engineering company based in Madison, WI that specializes in designing fiber and other telecom networks using geospatial technology and analytics.
Matt Osterman, one of the owners of Northwoods Connect, reached out to the team at Millennium Geospatial and learned more about what they could offer. Matt's team explained the area and type of connection needed for Crandon.
The engineering team got right to work and provided a high level design for the provider. The design got approved for further engineering, and the team added further details.
The final design will connect almost 300 homes and span over 17 miles. It will be the first time many of the households in the area will have access to high speed internet.
To make the detailed design even better, Millennium Geospatial sent two of its engineers, Luke and Will, to Crandon to do some field work.
This work allowed the team to make necessary changes to the design so that the construction process can go as smoothly as possible.
The engineers were able to make changes directly from the field using the ArcGIS Field Maps app to ensure that notes would not be lost in translation from the field to the GIS software.
Unfortunately, the engineers were not always able to use their field work app because it relied on data coverage, which tends to be spotty way up in the Northwoods. This really emphasizes the existence of the Digital Divide between urban and rural areas.
Nevertheless, the team had a back up plan with good, old-fashioned paper maps. However, they had to be more careful transposing the information into GIS software back in the office, which ultimately costed more time.
In the future, the team at Millennium Geospatial hopes to use Apps relying on data coverage anywhere and everywhere. As a company who specializes in rural network builds, Millennium Geospatial continues to narrow the divide, along with companies like Northwoods Connect. This collaboration is helping provide a necessity, such as high speed internet, to those who have been undeserved for too long.
With the design completed, Northwoods Connect needed materials to build this project. Millennium Geospatial was able to connect Matt's team to their parent company, Millennium, which provided the materials that would be needed for construction.
Northwoods Connect also asked about a recommendation for a construction company to complete the build. Millennium Geospatial trusted DTE Media and connected them to Matt's team.
Crandon, WI
The Results
By reaching out to Millennium Geospatial, Northwoods Connect was able to quickly and efficiently begin construction of their project in Crandon.
Northwoods Connect will be providing high speed internet at a faster rate to the residents of Crandon because of their decision to work with Millennium Geospatial, and will hopefully use the geospatial company's expertise and services for future projects.
Construction started in the early fall of 2020 and hopes to wrap up in 2021.
Visit millenniumgeospatial.com to contact us and learn more about what we do.
