About Trailblazer Broadband

• What is Trailblazer Broadband?

  • The Town of Estes Park is establishing community owned and operated broadband service, Trailblazer Broadband, a high-speed internet service that will ultimately be available to everyone served by Estes Park Power and Communications.

• What is broadband and what are the benefits?

  • Broadband, by definition, is high-speed internet. Trailblazer Broadband service will be delivered over fiber-optic lines, resulting in more reliable service that is up to 100 times faster than existing options in the area but without the need to bundle. You can choose your phone service and tv provider based on what service level is right for you and your needs.

    – With fiber-optic broadband, multiple people are able to use the same internet connection without a loss of speed or connectivity.

    – At home, residents will be able to work with ease, video chat with remote friends and family, stream movies, play games or music and much more.

    – Local businesses will enjoy quicker uploads, downloads, increased cloud-based functionality, better collaboration with co-workers and clients and more reliable video-conferencing.

    – Estes Park visitors will have more reliable internet to enjoy their favorite entertainment and check in with work while they are visiting.

• Why is the Town of Estes Park launching its own broadband service?

  • Residents and businesses of Estes Park have expressed a need for faster, more reliable internet. Most recently, our 2018 scientific survey told us that two-thirds of respondents wanted the Town to provide better internet service, their highest priority among 40 current and potential services. Private companies are unlikely to bring fiber-optic internet to Estes Park and surrounding areas due to the large up-front investment associated with the project.

    In addition to faster, more reliable internet, Trailblazer Broadband service is an investment in the community. By investing in its own broadband service, the Town of Estes Park is keeping dollars in the community while also creating jobs and ensuring high-quality local support through Estes Park Power & Communications.

• How does Trailblazer Broadband compare to other services currently available in the area?

  • Trailblazer Broadband service will be the only high-speed internet service delivered over fiber-optic lines, resulting in the fastest and most reliable option available to residents and businesses of Estes Park.

• Will there be support for businesses and business clients?

  • Absolutely! Because businesses all have very different internet requirements, we are committed to making sure that everyone has the type of service they need. For that reason, we don’t have a laundry list of rate plans that are typically built around limiting your speed and bandwidth. Instead, we work with each business customer individually to do some fact-finding and to make sure we meet all your needs effectively.

    We are contacting area businesses as service becomes available, but always feel free to contact us directly at 970-577-3770 or support@trailblazerbroadband.com for more information about how we can serve your business.

• What does this project cost and who’s paying for it?

  • In March 2019, the Town Board approved the launch and initial funding of the community-owned and operated broadband service. The initial startup phase will take advantage of Estes Park Power and Communication’s Smart Grid fiber optics infrastructure, which already exists in specific neighborhoods and is currently under construction in others.

    In late 2019, a bond issuance is planned to fund the four-year buildout of the utility — across the entire Power & Communications service area in Estes Park, Glen Haven, Allenspark and portions of the U.S. 34 and U.S. 36 corridors to the east. To ensure the business is funding itself, the order of service additions will be based on the construction cost and revenue potential.

    Beyond that, your rate payments for service go right back into running, maintaining, and expanding the system because this is your community-owned broadband.

• Why would the Town of Estes Park spend money on building a fiber-optic infrastructure when there are alternatives, such as 5G and Satellite?

  • Fiber is significantly better than 5G in numerous ways. It is not possible to build a gigabit class 5G network without first building a fiber network in Estes Park. A gigabit class 5G network will require fiber to every neighborhood and antennas within a maximum of 1000 feet from anywhere service is required. Such a fiber network is effectively a fiber-to-the-home network.

    Fiber internet also performs significantly better than all existing and proposed satellite internet options in almost every way. Satellite internet serves customers who have no other available internet options, however by building a fiber-optic infrastructure, the Town of Estes Park is able to offer internet service with significantly better speed, reliability, and latency (speeds for loading data).

• What if this project becomes too expensive or cumbersome, will construction stop?

  • We will build this fiber network anyway because our electric SmartGrid requires it and it is required to meet our renewable energy goals.

• Are other towns doing this type of thing?

  • Yes – we’re in good company! In 2017, Longmont became Colorado’s first “Gig” city in the country. Ft. Collins and Loveland are also implementing their own network.

    For additional perspective, more communities than ever are embracing building their own broadband networks as an alternative to private-sector providers. More than 750 communities across the United States have embraced operating their own broadband network, are served by local rural electric cooperatives, or have made at least some portion of a local fiber network publicly available. These networks have sprung up across the nation as a direct reflection of the country’s growing frustration with sub-par broadband speeds, high prices, and poor customer service.

    According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that advocates for local economies, there’s now 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned fiber-to-the-home Internet network.

    Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3np4a/new-municipal-broadband-map, Jan 23, 2018.

• Can I keep my existing email account with Trailblazer Broadband?

  • The answer depends on what type of email address you currently have.

    If it is hosted by your current service provider – TDS or CenturyLink for example – most likely you cannot take your email address with you.  The ISP could allow that since they own the email servers, but it doesn’t make good business sense to help people leave their service.

    Rather than offering hosted email service through Trailblazer Broadband,  we recommend that you set up an email account that will move with you such as a Gmail or Hotmail account. These are free and very easy to set up.

    You can get a free email account from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Outlook.com, just to name a few. Then, once you have set up your new email account, you can set up forwarding on your old ISP email account to your new email address before you close it. You’ll have to manually change those accounts online, but this will make it much easier. If you setup a Gmail account, you can create filters that automatically label any email addresses are forwarded from your old account so that you can keep track of which companies are still using your old email address.

    Follow one of the links below for instructions to set up one of these options as your new email service.

    Set up Gmail 

    Set up Microsoft Outlook (formerly Hotmail)

    Set up Yahoo

• Why are you in my yard?

  • In order to build our infrastructure, the main fiber network must be installed. Trailblazer does this by running fiber optic cable along the powerlines. As with all utility work, teams from Estes Park Power & Communications must access the utility easements at your location. For more information on utility easements, follow this link for the Town of Estes Park information.

    After you sign up for service, we will also be running fiber lines from the curb to your home or business following the existing power lines, either overhead or underground.

    As always, Trailblazer appreciates your patience and cooperation as we complete this work as quickly and efficiently as possible while maintaining the integrity of your surrounding property to the best of our ability.