DRYDEN – Dryden Fiber reported another record-setting month in terms of adding customers in September, and now reaches 25% of Dryden’s households and 20% of the town’s addresses.
That’s the town’s second straight record-setting month for growth in customer numbers.
The Dryden Fiber project expects “to have well over 200 customers by year’s end, and reach the break-even point – 262 customers – by the end of the first quarter of 2025,” General Manager David Makar told the town’s Broadband Committee Friday.
Committee members also were shown an updated version of Dryden Fiber’s service map, which shows a rapidly expanding “green zone;” that indicates the service is now available for use at homes and businesses both north and south of state Route 13. Much of the northern half of the town is marked in yellow – and progress continues there
The western edge of the map also shows significant growth in areas marked blue – meaning work is expected to be complete by the end of the year, provided the weather cooperates, said Ryan Garrison, information technology director for Hunt EAS, the architecture and engineering firm working on the project.
Garrison said work along state Route 366, Dryden Road and Turkey Hill Road in the Varna area is ongoing, with the Route 366 work completed. He also said cable is to be placed along North Road, and cable is ready to be installed along Caswell Road. Installation means those areas are ready to have service installed to people’s homes.
Committee members also reported significant progress installing service to mobile-home parks and apartment development projects. In one case, a trailer park owner offered to enable the town to use existing conduit on his land to preserve wiring, at no charge to the Dryden Fiber effort.
The committee did not decide Friday on a new, stand-alone telephone number that customers and potential customers could use to reach Makar, or a staffer working on the project. Callers still can reach Dryden Fiber by telephone, but still must dial the town offices at 607-844-8888 and select option 2.
Deputy Town Supervisor Dan Lamb suggested to committee members that they should encourage customers to provide testimonials about how easy it is to transfer to Dryden Fiber from a commercial internet service available in Dryden – and the cost savings that they realized by switching.
Members said they had heard some grumbling from customers that Dryden Fiber does not include telephone service, though a committee member said he had been able to switch his telephone service to a commercial “voice-over IP” phone provider at a charge of about $10 month – a cost significantly less than what many commercial telephone services charge users.
Service to the town of Caroline, just south of Dryden, is scheduled for 2026. Caroline joined Dryden’s effort this summer.
