By Kelly Doran
Sun staff

The village of Batavia may have Fioptics by the end of the year, due to the efforts of Dennis Nichols, village administrator.

Nichols wants the availability of high bit rate Internet service in Batavia for residents and for businesses in 2015 or 2016.

Fiber optic connection has to ability to send large amounts of information great distances at faster speeds. It also transmits a digital broadcast signal with great clarity, according to Cincinnati Bell Inc.’s website.

“The fiber optic connection transmits data by sending pulses of light through a thin optical fiber, which is smaller in diameter and weighs less than a standard coaxial cable,” the website states.

Cincinnati Bell plans to bring Fioptics to about 600 single-family and small businesses, including the East Main Street business district, according to a press release.

When Cincinnati Bell installs Fioptics in the village, businesses and private consumers with Cincinnati Bell will be able to upgrade their plan if they choose, and if they choose not to will keep their current plan, said Josh Pichler, senior manager of communications and media relations at Cincinnati Bell.

A very high bandwidth is necessary for the village to become a useful place for businesses, Nichols believes. To attract new businesses, the village really needs gigabyte Internet, he said.

“When we talk about industrial users coming into town, this is something that really matters for them. For residential users, it’s a luxury, it’s convenience, and one of the effects that it would have is, you would be, it would make your community much more attractive to young people,” Nichols said.

Fioptics provides TV and gigabit Internet speeds that are 10 to 100 times faster than average broadband speeds.

This is significant to business so they can move functions into cloud, grow with a mobile workforce and more, according to a release from Cincinnati Bell.

For consumers, gigabit Internet allows their devices to connect without issue and consume more data, according to a release.

The village could build it’s own Fioptics to bring it into homes, Nichols said. It would cost about $600,000, which the village would finance with revenue bonds, and the village could lease it to providers, such as Cincinnati Bell and Time Warner Cable.

However, Batavia does not have the staff or the competence and Nichols doesn’t want an operating system, he said.

Nichols has been talking with Cincinnati Bell about Bell putting in the Fioptics, which Bell would prefer because then it would own the fiber network, Nichols said.

Because Cincinnati Bell is installing the fiber, there will be no cost to Batavia, Nichols said. Any other provider that wanted to offer fiber optic in the village would then need to build their own fiber network or lease from Cincinnati Bell.

Fioptics is currently available to about 44 percent of the region and Cincinnati Bell plans to make it available to 70 or more percent by the end of 2016, according to a release.