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Adams Wells Internet Telecom TV
ADAMS WELLS
INTERNET TELECOM TV
BRINGING FIBER TO THE FARM
Replacing copper with fiber lets telco companies meet the connectivity demands of smart farms. Adams Wells Internet Telecom TV proactively transitioned from copper to fiber-optic cable, bringing fiber to the farm and helping ag businesses thrive. During the pandemic, Millennium’s local sourcing and shorter lead times helped Adams Wells get supplies quicker to better pivot during project road bumps that otherwise would have sidelined their rural fiber network expansion.
Fiber Internet Supports Rural Farming
The future of farming is smart farming. Digital tools and automation are helping farmers gather data and insights for increasing the productivity of their land while simultaneously reducing manual labor. Smart farming technologies supported by broadband internet helps farmers better manage climate conditions, connect to markets, and protect their community’s food supply, but not all farmers have access to reliable high-speed fiber that supports rural farming. Deep rural farmers either struggle with connectivity issues from aging copper infrastructures or are completely left out of the smart farming revolution in unserved areas. Internet service providers like Adams Wells are at the forefront of bringing internet connectivity to rural farmers and driving innovation in rural America.
Adams Wells is the internet division of the Craigville Telephone Company, which has been serving customers for over 100 years in Craigville, Indiana. The company was established in 1919 by John H. Berger under the original name of The German Telephone Company but was changed after World War I ended. Craigville Telephone Company called its internet division Adams Wells because it could offer dial-up to all of Wells and Adams County, Indiana, without customers having to pay for long-distance calls. Like many early internet service providers (ISPs), Adams Wells piggybacked on its existing copper telephone infrastructure to bring dial-up internet to customers in areas where other ISPs wouldn’t build out for lack of ROI. In the early days of the internet, when customers didn’t have high-bandwidth needs, copper was the gold standard in telecommunications; however, in today’s high-demand digital world, copper can’t provide the same reliability and speed as broadband fiber internet.
Recognizing the rise of fiber internet as the new gold standard for internet early, Adams Wells began transitioning from copper to fiber internet in 1998 after having only started its internet division in 1996. They proactively transitioned from dial-up to fiber, cutting their dial-up services and providing fiber to the home connections to compete against DSL and get ahead of other potential fiber competitors.
5 BENEFITS OF FIBER OPTIC INTERNET VS. COPPER
Extending Services & Communities
Adams Wells’ homebase of Craigville, Indiana, is a small unincorporated community in Wells County, with only about 560 people as of 2023. Adams Wells also serves nearby Bluffton, Indiana, a rural city of about 10,366 people as of 2023, and has connected nearly every home in Bluffton with fiber internet. The Adams Wells team prides itself on not only fostering positive, long-term relationships with its clients but also making Bluffton Indiana’s first gigabit city. Their focus in the last 10-15 years was serving the metropolitan areas of Bluffton with fiber internet, and now they’re servicing a larger area than they did as just a telephone company. The network is continuing to grow and their current goal is to sustainably build out their fiber network into rural communities surrounding Bluffton and Craigville, Indiana.
“We want to continue extending our services into rural Indiana communities to provide our customers with a high-quality fiber internet because it is today’s gold standard.”
Lee VonGunten, General Manager/Executive Vice President Adams Wells
Company Growth & Transition From Copper to Fiber
Adams Wells began replacing its aging copper networks with fiber in 1998. Fast forward to around 2010, and the company took its first steps into providing FTTH connections to future-proof its network. Adams Wells went from having all copper in 1998 and about 900 phone lines to about 181.2 miles of fiber installed by the end of 2022 and approximately 4,000 fiber customers in the summer of 2023. By the end of 2023, they plan to finish about 35 more miles of fiber.
“When I joined Adams Wells 25 years ago, I was a rookie coming in from the HVAC industry. I didn’t know anything about fibers, but I learned right along with my team from a fiber contractor we hired to get our fiber network started”
Martin Stout, Outside Plant Manager at Adams Wells
Connecting Rural Communities & Farmers
When Adams Wells first started expanding out their fiber network, the company chose Bluffton because of its geographic proximity to Craigville, Indiana; the city centers are less than seven miles apart, and Bluffton’s population of close to 10,000 at the time made it profitable to start laying fiber there. After completing the Bluffton build out with about 90% aerial construction, the company broke ground in their home territory of Craigville, Indiana. As of July 2023, Adams Wells is close to finishing their within-city limits fiber project in Craigville, with only about 10 to 13 miles left to build. Adams Wells’ next steps are moving into rural areas outside their Craigville and Bluffton service territories.
As Adams Wells moves into deeper rural areas, only about 9% of their construction is aerial. For about every mile of fiber they bury down these country roads, they may only pass three homes or at best 25-30 homes. As they bring connectivity to these deeper rural areas, Adams Wells is supporting rural farming innovations. Adams Wells is bringing FTTH connections to farm houses and then farmers and small ag businesses are putting in Wi-Fi backhauls on grain bins to access high-speed internet all around their whole farm complex. This hybrid broadband Wi-Fi setup is allowing many corn farmers to use sensing technologies and software apps to measure grain moisture, control smart tractors, and conduct data tracking to meet FDA regulations, making their farming more efficient.
fiber to Farm
Creating a Churn-Proof Network
By keeping a larger staff on their payroll, Adams Wells can support same day service and maintain service with little downtime. Their reputation for service and network quality has saved the network money on its advertising budget. From the time of their first FTTH build, Adams Wells decided to run their own advertising. They started out with grassroots marketing by placing small yard signs in customer’s yards which provided visibility. Inevitably storms would pass through these areas and neighbors with DSL or cable internet would lose service and either see these signs or hear about Adams Wells fiber internet not going down by word of mouth and then they would reach out to get fiber service hooked up with Adams Wells. The company’s investment in upgrading its copper infrastructure to fiber has helped future-proof their network.
Customers they serve
Adam Wells delivers broadband to underserved and unserved areas within city limits of Wells and Adams County and more recently, outside of city limits and deep rural communities.
Working with a Committed, Local Partner
In 2021, Adams Wells was putting in fiber and had run out of materials to complete the project. Rather than experiencing a significant bottleneck waiting on supplies, they reached out to Millennium’s Indiana warehouse for a shipment, and leveraged Millennium’s large product selection of over 250 vendors to get what they needed by the next morning.
“The Millennium team is easy to talk to and work with, and they have a warehouse that’s only about an hour and a half away, so I get what I need quickly, and it eliminates downtime and having to sit around waiting on deliveries when I can be out in the field.” – Martin Stout, Outside Plant Manager, Adams Wells
Getting ahead of the pandemic supply chain issues was also critical to keeping Adams Wells’ network expansion uninterrupted. The company decided to take a stocking stance on important materials, and with Millennium’s demand forecasting, Adams Wells’ got the materials they needed for their fiber projects. Because of Millennium’s vendor partnerships, fast lead times, and reliability, Millennium currently sources 80% of Adams Wells’ materials, and the partnership is going strong with the confidence that Millennium has their back if they need to pivot.
Future-Focused Network Owners from
Coast to Coast Look to Millennium For:
- Feasibility Studies & Network Design Plans
- Financing & Grants
- Project Resource
- Management
- Material Supply & Logistical Planning
- Equipment Leasing & Rentals
