Cincinnati Bell officials said they are willing to negotiate a new lease agreement with iFiber and that discussions are ongoing.
“Cincinnati Bell will not take any immediate action to disconnect fibers in the Butler County fiber-optic loop,” officials said in a written statement.
Robert Olding, president of iFiber, said Monday he was told by Cincinnati Bell that the fibers providing his company’s services would be shut off after Dec. 15. He said iFiber’s network serves 200 to 250 residential and business customers in Middletown, Hamilton, Oxford and Madison Twp., among other areas. Those customers were notified by e-mail last week that iFiber would be closing today, Olding said.
It was unclear Tuesday exactly how Cincinnati Bell would be working with iFiber’s existing customers, whether they would acquire them or if customers would need to start searching for alternative Internet providers.
In 2001, Butler County commissioners hired NORMAP, then owned by Robert Schuler, to oversee construction of a system of fiber optic cables that now spans 100 miles and delivers information throughout the county at the speed of light. Cincinnati Bell was subcontracted by NORMAP to construct the 96-strand fiber-optic ring. Thatcher, who co-owned iFiber, later bought NORMAP from Schuler for an undisclosed amount. Schuler and former county commissioner Michael Fox were federally indicted last year for allegedly conspiring to improperly benefit from the $2.75 million contract to build Butler County’s fiber optic system.
NORMAP would later sue Cincinnati Bell in 2009 claiming the telephone company trespassed on its property in order to “piggyback” or “overlash” its own fiber optic cables, according to Franklin County court documents.
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