New Shoreham, RI In the final days of September, just weeks before the New Harbor Boat Basin Marina closes for the season, Sertex Broadband Solutions construction crews extended underground fiber conduit onto the dock at Block Island’s Great Salt Pond. The work was completed in preparation for the installation of high-speed fiber internet. Images show a Sertex crew member attaching fiber conduit along the dock’s bridge deck and girders to the harbormaster’s shack. Construction workers wore flotation equipment and carefully timed installation to ensure safety, considering the weather and tide-related changes in water levels. The first municipally-owned fiber network in Rhode Island, BroadbandBI will be operational later this year.

Sertex is an expert in fiber optic infrastructure deployment in the Northeast. For over three decades, the company has provided leading-edge services to telecommunication, utility, and municipal customers. The vision of Sertex Broadband Solutions is to deploy fiber-to-the-home networks in unserved and underserved areas and give gigabit-speed internet access to every home and business. Currently, Sertex is deploying an island-wide FTTX network on Block Island in partnership with the town of New Shoreham, a community-wide municipal network in Plainville, Conn., and constructing last-mile fiber networks in 17 hill towns in western Massachusetts. The company’s model makes publicly owned/privately operated networks affordable and scalable with future-proof fiber technology.