DC BLOX recently built an inline amplifier shack off Gober Road, a fiber optic internet regeneration facility that houses communications equipment and allows fiber optic signals to be transmitted over long distances.
The ILA cabin was built in Oconee County to increase direct internet speeds from Myrtle Beach, SC to Atlanta, GA.
Bill Thomson, vice president of marketing and product management at DC BLOX, said DC BLOX is a digital infrastructure provider that builds and manages its own data centers and fiber optic networks.
“This is the infrastructure needed to support housing, businesses, computers and communications equipment, and of course our networks carry data to those businesses, facilities,” he said.
Thomson describes the purpose of the ILA hut by comparing carrying fiber optic light to shining a flashlight into the dark: the light dims as distance from the flashlight increases.
“About every 50 miles or so, we have to install communications equipment to pick up the incoming light, amplify it again, and then send it back over the next 50 miles,” Thomson said.
Thomson said DC BLOX’s cable landing station in Myrtle Beach has fiber optic cables that carry Internet data between continents, such as anything done through a cell phone.
Thomson explained that growth in the Southeast has increased demand for data centers and fiber optic networks, particularly a direct east-to-west path from Myrtle Beach to Atlanta that did not previously exist.
Thomson said the route through Oconee could be thought of as a “superhighway” carrying data between anyone connected to it.
Others build “local roads” or fiber optic networks that connect directly to homes and businesses.
“The advantage of our network is that they don’t have to build anything outside their local roads. Once they build their local roads, it will be more cost-effective for them to connect our network routes to our motorways,” Thomson explain. “We can get them to all the major communication points in the southeastern United States.”
DC BLOX sells its fiber optic capacity to third-party companies, Thomson said. Companies that have publicly announced their use of it are Google and Meta, the umbrella company for Facebook and Instagram.
Thomson said companies such as Comcast, AT&T or Windstream could use the ILA Hut to provide high-speed Internet access in the area.
County Administrator Justin Kirouac said the county has had preliminary conversations with DC BLOX about potentially using the facility for local broadband expansion, but said the facility is ultimately separate from Charter’s expansion in the county.
Thomson said Core One Consulting is working to identify land where DC BLOX can lease the facilities and obtain the permits needed to build them, such as the land off Gober Road.
“The need to install communications equipment there will only increase over time,” Thomson said. “As we sell more and more capacity on the fiber network, more equipment will come into the facility and we hope It’s something that will always be there…as long as the Internet exists.”
Thomson said the ILA hut in Oconee is a nondescript, relatively small hut surrounded by a fence and containing communications equipment.
He compared it to the buildings used by telephone and cable TV companies to house connected devices. Thomson said the ILA cabins should not have regular lights or sounds, other than potential outdoor security lights.