Internet company was banned from burying cable in Columbia. Now it’s working in this area

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A fiber optic internet company that was previously blocked from operating in Columbia because of damage caused by its utility crews is active in the Midlands again.

The internet company Lumos based in North Carolina began work last week to bury fiber optic cables in the Murraywood neighborhood near Irmo. The company expects the crews to move on from the area fairly quickly and move on to other areas in Irmo, where they will be laying pipe for home internet use.

“We have a decent-sized build in Irmo, where a lot (of customers) didn’t have fiber-to-home today, and we continue to work in Cayce and Lexington,” said Derek Kelly, vice president of market development for the company.

Utility crews last week were putting down pipe for fiber optic cables in the subdivision along Willow Creek Drive, and residents saw small plastic construction notices in their yards announcing the project.

“While construction can be messy, rest assured, we’ll leave your area just as neat or better than it started and will be out of your way as soon as possible,” the notices said.

Lumos has plans to increase its services into Irmo, including adding WiFi to town parks, Kelly said. It has also increased its offerings in Cayce, Lexington and West Columbia in the past year. Kelly said there’s an increased demand for high-speed services with the growth of streaming entertainment and the number of people working from home.

“I don’t think we set an end date,” he said of the Irmo project. “We could continue to add additional areas we’ll be working in a little bit. It’s not completely up to us, because we depend on the cities and towns for permitting.”

But the company has also been the subject of controversy in the Midlands before.

Last year, the city of Columbia halted work by Lumos after its crews caused half a dozen gas leaks, including one that required several residents of the Elmwood Park neighborhood to be temporarily evacuated from their homes and the closure of busy Elmwood Avenue.

But Lumos was later permitted to resume work laying fiber optics, which are key to carrying high-speed internet signals long distance, even as more problems emerged over the summer when crews struck water mains in parts of Columbia.

But that hasn’t stopped the company from moving into Lexington County. Lumos announced last fall that it had received the proper franchise agreements with Columbia, West Columbia and Irmo to start laying 1,200 miles of fiber-optic cable between Richland and Lexington counties.

“Doing any kind of utility work can be an intrusive project, with the amount of crews and people coming in,” Kelly said. “We try to go above and beyond in digging holes to find existing utilities, to find everything from gas and sewer lines, and not just where the mark is, but to dig to be sure.”

He said Lumos crews tend to complete a project in a particular area within a few days, and he encourages residents to call the number on the notices if they have specific concerns about their property.

The company has promised to invest $100 million between the two counties, while expanding “high-speed internet access to many unserved and underserved residents and (providing) an added boost to economic development in the area,” the company declared in a press release last September.

Lumos is active in North Carolina and Virginia, in addition to expanding into South Carolina. The company has also announced a $100 million investment in Greenville County.

The town of Irmo is currently reviewing a plan to have Spectrum lay new cables in a part of town that will require the cable company to dig up a portion of Veterans Park. The Murraywood neighborhood is outside the Irmo town limits in Lexington County.