If you were traveling along Bridge Road near Calhoun Street in Old Town Bluffton late Wednesday morning, you might have seen a small yellow backhoe clawing at the earth.
That was Bill Turner’s Cape Fear Utilities crew digging so it could install cable line for Time Warner Cable.
Time Warner, which recently merged with Charter Communications, “is currently installing underground cable in the Bluffton area,” according to a town news release. Crews have been working in the areas of Ninth Avenue, Boundary Road, Goethe Road and Taylor Court for the past couple of weeks. Installation is expected to continue for “several months,” and the town will inform residents about future work areas.
As of 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, Turner, a Cape Fear project manager, estimated his crew had laid 2,500 feet of cable. The men had worked down Bridge Road and around the corner of Pope Lane to Boundary Road, he said.
“We’re waiting on permits to clear so we can do the whole town,” he said. “Every street in here’s going to get service.”
Time Warner spokesperson Patrick Paterno said Wednesday afternoon that the Bluffton Parkway-Red Cedar Road intersection to the Bluffton Parkway-Bluffton Road intersection forms the project’s northern boundary, and that it runs south to the May River.
“While this is a Charter project, the town wants to be a partner in communications so our residents know where and when a Charter crew will be installing cable,” town of Bluffton spokesperson Debbie Szpanka wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon.
“The town has asked Charter for a regular list of construction schedules and locations so the town can help inform residents,” she continued. “When received, the town will help distribute that information via media releases and social media with the caveat that uncontrollable factors such as weather may delay or prolong the schedule.”
The project began around May 30, Paterno said, and should be completed “sometime in the fall.”
Paterno said he could not divulge, “for competitive reasons,” the number of homes and businesses the new “fiber coax cable” might service, and that he didn’t have information on prices at this time.
Local cable provider Hargray Communications says it’s not worried about Time Warner’s expansion.
Hargray spokesperson Gerrit Albert said his company has been competing with Time Warner in the area, including Bluffton, for the past decade.
“We regularly compete and win against Time Warner,” Albert said. “We believe our product is better, our prices are better, and we continue to make investments in Beaufort County.”
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