HUME — The villages of Hume and Metcalf may have the opportunity to make a big 21st century jump with fiber-to-home internet service.

Ron Macek of Rise Broadband made a presentation Monday, March 13, at the Hume village board meeting, which was also attended by Metcalf residents. Macek visited Hume following a prior appearance that same evening at the Newman City Council meeting.

“Rise Broadband plans to build a gigabit fiber network in Hume, Metcalf and nearby communities,” he said.

Completing the project will require installing about five miles of cable in Hume and three miles in Metcalf.

He described the effort as a middle-mile project designed to bring high-speed fiber optic internet services to clusters of residences like small towns and tiny villages. Macek said the company will not make internet available outside corporate limits, although there is an option for rural residents living immediately adjacent to the fiber optic line on U.S. Route 36 to get the service.

Macek said Rise Broadband specializes in bringing high-speed internet to small, underserved communities but doing so requires getting government grants, like the recent round of Connect Illinois funding, to offset some of the expenses.

To qualify for the grant, Rise must provide broadband service with 100 megabits per second for both the download and upload speeds. It is also possible for customers to have a 1 gigabit service, although Macek was not sure why somebody might want that much capability.

“A single gigabit could pretty much serve the whole town,” he said.

There is a strong incentive for Rise Broadband to meet the imposed speed requirements.

“If we don’t provide the promised speed we have to give the money back to the state because we are considered in default,” said Macek.

He stressed the local municipal governments are not required to put any money into the project although it is helpful if they can supply water for the boring machines used to bury the cables.

“Fiber is not like wireless,” Macek said. “Once it is in the ground there is little to go wrong to interrupt service or require repairs unless a construction crew cuts the line.”

Something Rise will ask for is space on community owned property to pour a small slab of concrete to install an equipment cabinet.

Other support for the project can come in the form of letters from residents and municipal government endorsing the project as worthwhile for the community. Those letters accompany the grant application.

Macek was unable to provide an exact time for when service will start. Engineering must be completed, grant funding secured and state permits obtained to bury the fiber optic cable. He was confident it will be sooner than later.

The Hume village board took no action on the proposal as the presentation was not on the agenda as a voting item. However, some board members voiced initial approval of the idea.

The main action of the night was approving the two-year lease of a Flock security camera at a little more than $2,000 per year. Another camera is desirable, and the village will investigate pursuing a grant to make that happen.