WOODSTOCK, NY – Archtop Fiber has been given space in a closet in the back of the City Hall police station in exchange for providing internet service to the city government.

The agreement was approved during a City Council meeting on Tuesday and will give the upstart fiber optic cable company the distribution routes needed to begin laying commercial lines in the business district and surrounding residential areas.

“Starting today, we build tomorrow,” said Shawn Beqaj, the company’s chief development officer.

“We don’t have all the permits yet to deploy throughout Woodstock,” he said. “We have some of those and can serve downtown very, very quickly … and (in) the areas where we can operate underground.”

The permits needed to use poles in much of the city are being obtained by Central Hudson. Beqaj said the utility is holding up work in several areas, including completing installation in Saugerties, where 15,000 completed sites are already eligible for service.

“Some of these permits have been in process for more than 300 days,” he said.

In Saugerties, work was completed in the village and in Barclay Heights, but work was halted in other populated areas.

“There are certain areas we are still waiting on, for example towards Glasco Turnpike,” said construction manager Tom Weckesser.

In total, Archtop Fiber has completed installation for potentially 52,000 customers and plans to have 160,000 properties operational by the end of 2025.

The space to be used for the Archtop Fiber Distribution equipment would be a 1.5 square meter cabinet.

“We can’t even go inside. It’s so small,” Weckesser said. “We’ll put a door on the outside of the building, open it up and work on the equipment there. That’s why we would never go to the police station or anything like that.”

The room will have an electrical supply and there are plans to bring an emergency generator to the site in the event of a long-term power outage.

“It will only be used if there is a hurricane or a severe power outage where the power is out for hours,” Weckesser said. “It’s an (uninterruptible power supply) … that gives us some time to get the generator out there and use it when the power goes out.”

Originally published: August 14, 2024 at 5:10 p.m.