Why Doesn’t Sandwich Isles Communications Offer Fiber To The Home Service In Hilo?

I received this blog comment regarding The Villages at Aina Le’a project tonight.

“It was March 31 that ‘Aina Lea was to have finished 16 units of affordable housing, for which they got a last-last-last second reprieve from the land use commission. It sits there unfinished and it looks terrible from the Highway.”

The accuracy of this comment is suspect. I checked their website for updates. They’ve posted 78 images detailing the progress  made on the first phase of this development.

However, I’m attempting to get an update on the construction progress. There is simply too many unanswered questions about the developer’s financial wherewithal to complete this project.

It doesn’t help that I stumbled on these blogs (here, and here) attempting to lure unsuspecting investors to buy into this development.

Lastly, a DHHL homesteader asked me why Sandwich Isles Communications doesn’t offer Fiber To The Home service to his location. He lives in a recently constructed subdivision in the Piihonua section of Hilo.

Sandwich Isles only offers regular telephone service and 3Mbps DSL service to his home. However, their website states:

“An all-underground fiber optic cable network delivers SIC’s state-of-the-art services throughout Hawaii, and since 2007, all new services have been delivered by fiber right to the home or office [FTTP].“

The only plausible reason for this lack of service is because SIC’s network not complete. They depend on Hawaiian Telcom’s facilities to connect their Hilo network to their Kamuela central office and inter-island submarine fiber-optic network. So, it is likely SIC is only leasing enough circuits to offer only POTS and basic Internet connectivity at this point in Hilo.

(Image courtesy: NECA)

I’ve e-mailed Sandwich Isles in an attempt to get an official explanation for this limited service.