Lumos Fiber pitches underground citywide build for New Franklin; company to provide KMZ maps and coordinate with county project

Steve Christ, director of market development for Lumos Fiber, told New Franklin City Council that the company is proposing a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network meant to bring higher-capacity broadband to parts of the city the mayor described as “vastly underserved.” Christ used a demonstration object to explain fiber optics and said fiber ". . .sends the data through light, so it's as fast as the speed of light."

Christ emphasized differences between older copper and coax networks and glass-fiber cable, saying fiber is faster, symmetric for upload and download, and more resilient when buried underground. "What we use it now is light. It holds the data and you send it through. What makes this important is it holds a lot more data," he said. He said Lumos generally does underground builds to limit weather-related outages and to reduce pole-related damage when wind or accidents occur.

Christ described Lumos as a mid-sized operator that entered Ohio in July 2024 and will typically build neighborhoods in field-distribution-hub (FDH) clusters of about 300–500 homes. He said the company offers service tiers that have included 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps and 2 Gbps products, and that some markets have 5-year price-lock promotions for certain packages. Construction and customer restoration were repeatedly framed as priorities: Christ said Lumos provides multiple pre-construction notices (mailers, door hangers, yard signs), an 800 number staffed by a call center and a restoration policy for yards and landscaping. He urged residents to notify crews of sensitive yard features in advance.

On coverage, Christ said Lumos prefers to plan for entire communities rather than isolated pockets, but acknowledged very low-density driveways or houses several miles from the nearest cluster can be impractical. "We're hesitant about saying every single household's gonna get it because there may be a street that we miss for whatever reason," he said. He also described a typical build timeline: Lumos builds a loop and then serves neighborhoods off that backbone; a neighborhood build can move from construction to service in roughly six weeks after crews finish an FDH area, while a full-city build can take several months to years depending on scope and locates.

Christ said Lumos is privately funded and not seeking public dollars. He distinguished Lumos' residential service from Summit Connect, the county-funded initiative that focuses on government and first-response connections, and said the companies have discussed coordination on shared trenches where practical: "If there's a street that they're going down and they're opening up, let's say, a trench, there's no reason for us to not go in at the same time."

Council members asked for maps and more precise coverage figures; Lumos agreed to provide KMZ files that show planned streets and loops for staff review. Christ said permitting discussions had begun and estimated that permitting and engineering could lead to visible work in the city in the January–March timeframe, with local variation depending on locates and approvals. He also agreed to provide the city and council with contact points and the KMZ maps for review.

What remains unclear from the presentation: a precise citywide start date, a final build schedule for specific neighborhoods, and exact pricing for New Franklin residents (Christ said promotional pricing varies by market). Council members requested the KMZ files and pledged to share locally identified underserved pockets so Lumos could consider them during final route planning.

Lumos' presentation and the council Q&A are preliminary; the company said it expects to return for follow-up meetings once staff review of routes and permitting is complete.