County approves upgrade to 500 Mbps internet for $16/month increase
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Summary
Webster County approved a renewal and bandwidth upgrade with Arian, increasing county internet from 200 Mbps to 500 Mbps for an additional $16 per month and extending the agreement to five years, with redundant lines for resiliency.
The Webster County Board of Supervisors approved a renewal and bandwidth upgrade with Arian, increasing the county's internet service from 200 megabits per second (Mbps) to 500 Mbps for an additional $16 per month.
Andrew McGill, Webster County IT director, told the board the county has used Arian for fiber service since about 2012–2013 and is seeing bandwidth limits as more services move online. He said the vendor proposed increasing bandwidth for an additional $8 per line per month; the county has two lines for redundancy so the total monthly increase is $16.
McGill said the upgrade will extend the county's agreement out to five years and that the two separate lines run in different directions to preserve connectivity if one line is damaged: "We have 1 that goes out 1 way of town... and 1 that goes out the other way of town. So with hopes that if somebody would take a backhoe and dig up the line, we still have Internet connectivity."
The board approved the renewal and bandwidth increase by voice vote.