Oxford Networks hopes to expand services to Lewiston and Auburn this summer with a $15-20 million investment in fiber-optics.

That would give downtown businesses and residents the opportunity to subscribe to high-speed cable TV, telephone and Internet services.

“Right now, much of the fiber optics you hear people talking about are used to connect one server to another,” said Brian Paul, vice president of business development for Oxford Networks.

“The information flies there, but it goes through a plain old copper wire to get to your house. That local level, that’s where the bottleneck for data happens,” Paul said.

Oxford Networks would compete head to head with Adelphia for cable TV subscribers and with Verizon for local phone service.

Having two cable companies could mean savings for Twin Cities subscribers, said Auburn Assistant City Administrator Mark Adams. He helped negotiate the franchise agreement with Oxford Networks for both cities.

“We did some research and found very few cities with two cable companies,” Adams said. “There are a couple in California, and we found that the competition led to some overall price reductions. Or, the way the cable industry has gone in the past few years, it could mean fewer price increases.”

It would make Lewiston and Auburn unique, he said.

“Across the industry as a whole, there’s not a lot of competition,”Adams said. “Even a place like Boston, as big as it is, has one cable provider.”

High speed

Oxford Networks plans to string fiber-optic cables from house to house, creating a much faster network designed to carry all kinds of data, including voice and television.

The network would give users up to 40 megabytes of data per second directly into their homes. Digital cable television signals could use about six megabytes of that stream, and heavy Internet usage could take up another two megabytes. Telephone service would use less than a megabyte of that data stream, he said.

“With the exception of a handful of large businesses, most people do not have access to this level of bandwidth,” said Oxford Networks President Roderick Anstey. “There are not many communities around the country that have this, and none in New England. It’s unique.”

Oxford Networks currently provides Internet services to 13,000 Maine subscribers and about 14,000 telephone customers, mostly in western and central Maine. The company also owns a 400-mile fiber-optic pipeline between Bangor and Portsmouth, N.H.

The company would begin offering services to the first Lewiston-Auburn subscribers by the end of the year and to 4,200 homes and businesses in downtown Lewiston and Auburn within 18 months. The company hopes to include all properties in both cities within five years.

Small business will be a particular target of marketing efforts, Anstey said.

“That’s why we want to start with the downtown areas,” he said. “Smaller businesses typically do not make the kind of investment to get this kind of Internet service, but they can benefit from it as much as a bigger company.”

The company has been in negotiations with both cities since November, working out the details of the franchise agreement. The pact is scheduled to go before the Auburn City Council on May 19 and the Lewiston Council on May 20.

Adams said the franchise agreement is almost identical to Adelphia’s agreement. The company would pay a 2.5 percent franchise fee per subscriber and agree to performance bonds and penalties. The company would also agree to hook both cities and local school departments into the fiber-optic network.

The company would offer services comparable to Adelphia, according to Paul. That would include a bottom tier service with only the most basic cable channels on up to premium services with multiple movie channels. The digital nature of the networks means that it will be able to offer on-demand video services, as well.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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