By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

It will probably be April before Fayette residents will see MediaOne construction crews out digging up their yards, says John West, project manager for the company's Fayette County upgrade.

The company has begun the work of replacing almost 800 miles of cable television facilities in Fayette, but most of the work at this point is not visible.

Once the physical work begins, West said, residents will have to put up with some mud and mess, plus more frequent cable service interruptions, for a few weeks as crews go from neighborhood to neighborhood installing state-of-the-art fiber optic equipment.

West and MediaOne vice president Dennis Lopatch updated the Fayette County Commission on plans for the upgrade last week, saying all of the work should be finished by October.

“We lost a week to weather,” said West, referring to last week's ice storm, which kept construction crews indoors and tied up maintenance crews in restoration efforts.

But, he added, much of Fayette's cable wiring is overhead, and replacing it should go quickly. “Fayette is sort of a construction dream from that perspective,” he said.

The county will be carved up into areas, and work will be completely finished in one area before crews move on to the next, said West. Residents will notice that grass that's been disturbed won't be replaced right away, even though the work looks finished, he warned.

“We don't do the restoration until we are completely done with an area,” he said. It's less expensive to sod an entire area at once, and crews need access for ongoing testing of the new cable, he said.

Once the work is finished in each section, he said, the cable will be turned on and customers will start being billed at a higher rate for the new services available.

Although customers already have received letters announcing the rate increase, they won't get the rate hike until they have the new service, said Lopatch.

You'll know when work crews are coming to your neighborhood. You'll get a door knocker message and a letter. Once the work is finished, Lopatch promised you'll be happier with the service.

High speed cable modem and telephone service, made possible by the fiber optic technology, won't be available right away, though, Lopatch said. That will come after a period of testing and “working the bugs out” of the cable system, he said.