Greenlight teams with LeChase to expedite expansion

Thanks to a new joint venture with LeChase Construction Services, Greenlight Networks expects to bring new fiber optic internet service to another 80,000 customers in the Rochester metro area by the end of 2020.

Greenlight LeChase LLC will accelerate the build-out of the Greenlight network by capitalizing on the strengths of both companies.

Greenlight will continue to determine neighborhoods for expansion and create network design. LeChase then will oversee the permit process, site management and the hiring of independent contractors for each project.

“This is part of what we’ve always done; scheduling, creating a safety plan, getting permits done, cost estimating,” LeChase President Willaim Mack said. “Those kinds of things are at the core of our business.”

Since billionaire Tom Golisano, the founder of Paychex, became Greenlight’s chief investor in the spring of 2018, the independent fiber company has dramatically increased coverage while tripling its workforce, from 18 to near 60, Greenlight President and CEO Mark Murphy said.

Before 2019, the Rochester-based company was adding about 5,000 homes per year. With the additional resources provided by Golisano, 10,000 customers were added just this year, bringing its total customer base to 40,000.

Murphy said people love Greenlight’s ultra-fast internet. “The one thing they don’t love: We’re not at their house now,” he said.

“We’re trying to build out as quickly as we can. But we’ve come to realize that as fast as we’ve grown, we can’t do it alone.”

Enter LeChase. “Their expertise in construction management is best in class,” Murphy said.

In areas that require the network to be underground, LeChase will handle excavation. The 75-year-old construction firm will also oversee above-ground cabling.

“We’ll handle all the logistics that are necessary to get into the neighborhoods we want to serve,” Mack said.

Since LeChase is heavily active in the construction of health care and higher education facilities, it is very familiar with the process of routing high-tech fiber optics, Mack said.

Greenlight was founded in 2011 and provides internet speeds up to 2 Gigabit per second (2,000 Mbps). Service is contingent on a certain number of residents in a particular neighborhood signing up for the service. Some areas require as few as 10 percent of households, others as much as 50 percent, depending on access costs, Murphy said.

Larger portions of Gates, Greece, Irondequoit, East Rochester, Penfield, Brighton and Fairport are on Greenlight’s expansion map for sometime in 2020.

There are no plans to add more neighborhoods within the city of Rochester, however. The city’s Telecommunications Code, which went into effect in February, requires cable and wireless providers to pay fees for new installation.

Murphy said his company has been trying to negotiate with city officials on the fees. Unless there is a change in the fee structure, adding more city neighborhoods would not be cost effective, he said.

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