Mark Twain Communications Announce Fiber Internet is Coming to Edina

By Echo Menges

EDINA — Following a ceremonial ribbon cutting, Mark Twain Communications officially announced the start of a multi-million dollar project to bring high-speed fiber optic internet to the city of Edina early Friday morning, Oct. 24.

“We’re excited to do a fiber project in the town of Edina, Missouri,” said Jim Lyon, CEO and general manager of Mark Twain Communications. “As the sign says, fiber for the future starts here.”

Lyon said the groundwork for the project began more than two years ago.

“We applied for a USDA RUS grant over 28 months ago, and we’ve had to actually file it twice because Congress had USDA go back and redo it. So that’s why it took so long,” he said. “We actually just got approval about a month ago.”

The grant was awarded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS), a program that helps fund infrastructure projects in underserved rural areas — including broadband internet expansion.

Construction could begin soon.

“We have people meeting with the city later today, and we are planning to maybe break ground next week.”

The new service will offer gigabit-level speeds with multiple tiers available.

“They’ll be able to get gig speed symmetric point, which is a big, big deal,” Lyon said. “We have three options. We have a gig service, we have 2.5, and we have five gig service.”

The total project cost exceeds $4 million, according to Lyon.

“Somewhere over $4 million. And that is basically all of the city of Edina,” he said. “We’re actually putting up matching funds… I think we put 30 percent of it.”

Mark Twain Communications has previously brought fiber to other northeast Missouri communities.

“We started in 2007 replacing all of our copper in all of our ILEC exchanges,” he said. “Leonard, Missouri, was the first one. Durham was the second one.”

All new fiber optic lines in Edina will be buried underground.

“We don’t put anything on poles. Everything is buried.”

Lyon explained this improves long-term reliability.

“If they use corn-based fiber… the squirrels eat into it,” he said. “Some companies put it up… and the service was too low, and so when the combine went into the field, it pulled the fiber down.”

Even the in-yard equipment will be low profile.

“We won’t have pedestals. Everything will be a handhole,” Lyon said. “You can mow over it. You don’t have to mow around it. You don’t have to weed-eat around it.”

The scope of Edina’s build is similar to other recent projects.

“It’s about the same as Lancaster. We did Lancaster all with fiber,” he said. “That actually benefits the people in the rural area as well.” Weather could affect the timeline for installation.

“I’m hoping to try to have most of it done within a year, maybe a little longer,” Lyon said. “If we start now and we get a bunch of snow, we can’t locate the cable, so we’ll be working closely with the city on where their utilities are.”

Sellenreik Construction has been contracted for the installation.

“We’ve been using them for 28 years,” Lyon said. “They’ve been doing all our other projects in the ILEC.”

Mark Twain currently has about 260 customers in Edina.

Lyon credited strong community support as key to making the project possible.

“We appreciate everybody that gave us support letters.”

The project had grassroots momentum from the start.

“We had people going to ball games, going house to door for us. Everybody was so excited about doing this project.”

Edina residents who wish to sign up early can contact the Mark Twain Communications office in Hurdland or visit marktwain.net/ edina-fiber online.