SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – 70% of the Queen City now has access to faster internet. City Utilities (CU) has finished installing quantum fiber around Glenstone, Nichols, Norton and Twin Oaks. CU says by late 2022 to early 2023, it will finish installing quantum fiber in seven areas around town.

OzarksFirst spoke with a father who lives where crews are getting ready to work: the Phelps Grove neighborhood. Tim Daugherty says he’s excited to have fiber internet, especially since it doesn’t have any data limits.

“The kids are multi-connecting constantly,” Daugherty said. “They’re doing games on their phone with their friends. They’re on Stadia, Xbox and streaming music at the same time. I kind of have come to appreciate my age-related hearing loss. They are pulling a lot of data and I don’t like checking our data usage through the month. I would like to not do that anymore.”

Daugherty says he’s glad Springfield is making fiber easy to access.

“We have good internet service providers. A lot of people are happy with them, but this project is going to deliver faster speed, no data caps and better pricing. We’re pretty pleased about that in the neighborhood. Even those who stay with their [internet service providers] currently I think are going to benefit because of the competition.”

Joel Alexander with City Utilities tells OzarksFirst that crews are 62% done around Kansas Expressway, and 46% finished around Clay.

Once crews are done installing fiber, a vendor like Lumen takes over. Alexander says that’s when Lumen reaches out to homes in those areas, and technicians create the internet service for those interested.

“We’ve found a way that we think is a great way to provide more services to our customers,” Alexander said. “Yet we’re not providing the actual internet service, which is what we’re not allowed to do to residential.”

Senior manager of Quantum Fiber (Lumen) Steve Kirks tells OzarksFirst that fiber offers one of the fastest internet services you could get in a home.

Its connection is 25% underground, and 75% on poles above ground. Fiber internet speed can reach up to 940 megabits per second.

“I’m getting it in like a month and a half, and I’m super excited,” Kirks said. “I’ve been with this project for almost three years now, so I’ve been patiently waiting. I was sad to find out my neighborhood was one of the last ones, but I know that there’s about 20,000 residents in this area who will probably have access to this by Christmas time.”

At the moment, it would cost someone $65 a month to have Lumen’s fiber service. CU tells OzarksFirst it isn’t charging people to install fiber in their area. The cost of the entire project will be covered by the vendors who offers an internet service to customers.

Kirks says his company has a simple billing system. Taxes and fees are a possibility, though.

“I’d say it’s pretty convenient. It’s a subscription-based service. It’s month-to-month billing, so there’s no contracts.”

Alexander tells OzarksFirst that CU is now starting work around the Sunset-downtown area. That’s the last part of this project. When the project is complete, around 115,000 addresses in Springfield will have access to high-speed internet.

To check if you have fiber internet in your neighborhood, click here.