PRESQUE ISLE TOWNSHIP — A new effort to bring high speed internet to the residents of Presque Isle and Krakow townships is underway.

Officials from both townships are working with the Elk Rapids-based Cherry Capital Communications to first bring wireless service then a fiber connection to homes within township boundaries.

Presque Isle Township Supervisor Larry Fields said a committee of township residents selected Cherry Capital.

Fields said the township will use a $100,000 grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. for the project.

“With that money, we were able to support this whole effort and make it worthwhile for the smaller companies, because the bigger ones like AT&T and Verizon have no interest in coming to this area,” he said. “We do not have enough people. We’re not densely populated.”

Fields said the more densely populated areas of the township were targeted by internet companies when the internet was first brought there, but other portions of the township remain without service or with outdated and slow technology, he said.

Cherry Capital CEO Tim Maylone said the first part of the project will include the construction of three towers in Presque Isle Township and five towers in Krakow Township. Fields said that part of the project should only take a couple of months once it begins. Maylone said the company is still waiting for landowners to sign leases that will allow the towers to be constructed on their property.

The Presque Isle Township Planning Commission has signed off, but Maylone said he’s still waiting on the Krakow Township Planning Commission. That commission meets next on May 28.

Calls to Krakow Township Supervisor Michael Grohowski were not immediately returned.

“The biggest problem of Presque Isle County is the lack of mainline fiber,” Maylone said. “In relationship to those two townships — Posen and Alpena are the closest mainline fiber, and so that is an average of 15 to 19 miles of fiber that would have to be laid to get to Grand Lake, and so that’s an expensive proposition.”

The towers would be between 100 feet and 128 feet high. Maylone said they don’t take up a lot of space and can be hidden by natural tree coverage. Once those towers are active, he said, they will connect fiber from Posen and eventually Alpena to Grand Lake.

The proposed project in Presque Isle Township is expected to cost $3.5 million. Maylone said officials tried to put together a program that will allow residents to get fiber over time in a cost-effective manner.

Maylone said Cherry Capital’s model is different from other internet companies because it first pre-qualifies the community, meaning at least 66% of residents agree to become customers, and then constructs the infrastructure, instead of relying on grants from the federal government.

According to the company’s feasibility study, it needs 200 new customers to fund the infrastructure upfront. The first phase of that infrastructure has yet to be installed, and Maylone said 196 customers have signed on so far, making a downpayment to cover the cost of internet installation at their homes once permits for the project are issued.

Those customers are making a commitment to sign up for fiber, he said. The company is going to look for another 400 households to pre-commit to the fiber.

Maylone said that model is how the company has completed projects for the last 20 years. The company has a project in Cheboygan County and is pursuing a project in Leelanau County.

“We feel there’s no reason why living in northern Michigan means that telecommunications should be second-class,” he said. “You should have the same advantage as Ann Arbor or anywhere else.”