Friday, June 26
Installation work and initial testing has been completed at the Knottsville and Yelvington water tanks in eastern Daviess County. Orders are now being taken from the Yelvington area, but Knottsville does not yet have its internet backhaul feed and is probably about two weeks away from being ready to take customers.
We also completed installation work this week at the Oak Heights water tank in Webster County. We'll be doing testing there next week, so it should be ready to begin serving customers sometime the week of July 6.
Over the next two weeks, upgrades are planned at the Indian Hills tower north of Pellville and the Audubon tower east of Henderson (both established, currently-active towers). We'll be moving radios higher on each of them to improve coverage and will test the results ASAP when the work is completed. Also in the next two weeks, installation work is planned for the Tunnel Hill and Delaware water tanks in Henderson County.
Also, the public network map has been updated with several other planned sites that are about to go into the queue, having been confirmed as network additions with all the required paperwork. These sites include Bon Harbor in Daviess County; Olaton, Bell's Run, Hoover Hill and Hartford in Ohio County, and Dukes in Hancock County. We'll be adding all of these sites to the work schedule in the next few weeks.
Friday, June 12
New access sites are now beginning to be added to the network and more are being scheduled. We expect to be able to add 1-2 sites per week now throughout the summer as agreements are reached for additional sites.
Since our last web site update here, the Lambert Schoolhouse Road water tank in Hancock County has been released and is now servicing customers. That site covers an area near Hawesville, primarily to the south/southwest of town.
Looking at plans across the GRADD area, by county...
DAVIESS: Work is being performed right now on the water tanks at Knottsville and Yelvington. Those sites should be ready for testing early next week and are expected to begin serving customers by the week of June 22. We've also been approved to install radios on the West Louisville water tank and will be scheduling that work soon.
HANCOCK: Paperwork is being finalized to add several more sites. The first will be a new hub site at Weberstown, on the communications tower there, which will then feed signal to the Dukes, Patesville, Roseville and Cabot water tanks in the eastern part of the county. In the northern part of the county, one new site is planned but not finalized yet. Work is expected to begin at Weberstown later this month, with work at the additional sites to be scheduled once the hub site work dates are set.
HENDERSON: Paperwork is being finalized for several new sites, with the first likely to be the water tanks at Delaware and Tunnel Hill. More sites and details will be announced as things firm up.
MCLEAN: Currently, McLean County has the best geographic coverage, percentage-wise, of the seven counties. We are planning two new sites in the area, but they have not yet been finalized.
OHIO: Lease agreements were just received this week to allow us to put radios on the water tanks at Hoover Hill, Bell's Run and Olaton, but the work dates have not yet been set. Several other sites are also planned in Ohio County and will be announced as they're finalized.
UNION: Several sites are targeted in Union County but we are awaiting approvals, so new sites in this county will be announced when they're confirmed.
WEBSTER: Work is expected to begin in the next couple of weeks on the water tanks at Oak Heights and Vanderburg. More sites are targeted but have not yet been finalized.
We'll update the schedule next week with the next sites to be installed, once the Knottsville and Yelvington work is completed.
Monday, April 13
The Providence tower will be released for service tomorrow, covering areas northeast to southwest of Providence, counter-clockwise. Providence is the final tower in the original network plan that will be retained on the network.
Approximately 25 more sites are being targeted for addition and expansion of the network to improve coverage in all seven counties. Sites being targeted are, in most (but not all) cases, water tanks that can reach and fill major gaps in the original network design. These new sites will be announced and added to the network as the owners of the sites approve their use and sign leases allowing equipment to be installed on them.
The first of these new sites is the water tank near Hawesville, in Hancock County, on Lambert Schoolhouse Road at State Route 1389. Radios have been installed on this tank but Internet service has not been established there yet. A new backhaul connection from the Pellville tower is to be set up in the next week or two and the Lambert tank will be released for customers once the backhaul work is done. Information about that will be posted here when the release is set, and more information about new sites will also be posted here as new sites are firmed up, so updates here should come more frequently now that the network expansion is beginning.
To follow network changes and tower coverage, please check the ConnectGRADD Map.
Tuesday, February 24
The Elba tower has now been released for service. The online map (see below) has its coverage area defined. We will be releasing the Slaughters tower for service tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 18
The Robards tower has now been released for service. The online map (see below) has its coverage area defined.
Monday, February 16
As of this morning, we've now released the Calhoun tower, among several other additions and expansions since our last update on this site.
To see the current status of each tower and covered areas, you can check an online map here:
Click on a tower to see its current coverage area and/or enter your address to see if you're covered.
Important notes about the map:
- Green areas around the active towers are places where coverage has been good. Persons in those areas may place an order for service with a high probability of getting a good signal.
- Yellow areas (outside of the green) around active towers are areas where a signal is available in some areas but not all. Persons in or near those areas can get a test performed at their site to check for signal availability.
- Go by the shading around your location on the map and not the text message the map provides. Many locations in a green area will get a "low probability of coverage" message in text. Disregard that.
- Locations not in or near green or yellow areas are not yet covered. We continue to expand the network and update the map as new sites are added.
Winter weather has slowed build-out progress, but several new sites are planned for installation by spring and continuing into summer. Robards, Elba and Slaughters are all expected to be released within the next couple of weeks and some new sites will be announced in March as additions to the network (not yet on the map).
Friday, December 12
Lots of progress over the past few weeks, and service is now available in several new areas:
Much of Henderson, Union and Webster counties can now get service...
In Henderson County, most of the western, southern and southeastern parts of the county can now get service. We have not yet released the Robards tower, so far southern Henderson County is still only in testing, but residents in or near places like Smith Mills, Corydon, Niagara, Anthoston and Hebbardsville can now order service.
In Union County, most of the county east of Sturgis back over to near Waverly can now order service. This includes the cities of Morganfield and Uniontown and the southern part of the county along the Webster County line.
In Webster County, the area around Dixon and to its west now has coverage, as well as the western parts of the county, including Clay and Wheatcroft.
Anyone in those areas who is interested in high-speed internet can now call us at 1-877-472-3341 to place an order or, in some cases, to request a test at their home to confirm service availability.
Right now, we're finishing up improvements to the network backbone, increasing tower-to-tower bandwidth and performance in several places. We're also upgrading the Pleasant Ridge tower near the Daviess County-Ohio County border to expand coverage there and will be testing those improvements next week to identify newly-covered areas.
After the first of the year, more upgrades are planned on the towers at Taffy, Pellville and Lewisport, and testing is about to begin at Slaughters, Robards, Elba and Windy Hollow. All of those areas are expected to be opened or expanded by or around the end of January.