By Will Cornelius
The Surveyor

Having access to fast and reliable broadband is not just a luxury anymore. For many, it is a necessity. With the rise of hybrid work arrangements and more people than ever working from home, excellent broadband is essential. Also, no one likes it when Netflix takes forever to load!

On Tuesday night, at the Board of Trustees meeting for the Town of Berthoud, a request for qualifications was approved by the board to investigate a potential public-private partnership with a broadband provider to install fiber optic cables across the town. After discussions with Allo Communications and Loveland Pulse earlier this year, the town is exploring options where there could be mixed ownership of the broadband infrastructure between the town and the provider.

One attractive local option may be Berthoud-based Hilltop Broadband. The company was started by Eric Ryplewski who previously worked for the City of Longmont installing fiber optic cables. “We saw a need for broadband, especially in the rural areas,” Ryplewski said explaining the inspiration to start the company. Living two miles west of Berthoud, Ryplewski originally built a small tower for better internet access just at his home. Word of faster internet speeds in the rural area spread and soon his neighbors were asking if they could pay him to get in on his growing network. “It just grew from there organically,” he stated.

Ryplewski, now the CEO of Hilltop Broadband, employs a team of 15 people and said his business has installed fiber optic cables at over 15% of residences in Berthoud. Rural areas have long struggled to attract broadband infrastructure due to larger internet providers focusing on large metro areas instead. But Ryplewski knew that everyone wanted better internet, not just city slickers in Denver.

“The difference we were making in communities, especially rural areas, where they didn’t think there was any option for internet. Then all of a sudden—here we are—we’ve got internet and now they can do anything they want to do that people are doing in town.” Platteville in Weld County is one of those communities. With no direct cost to the town or residents, Hilltop Broadband is in the final stages of installing fiber optic cable to the entire town thanks to a grant from the Advance Colorado Broadband Grant Program.

In addition to catering to smaller more rural communities, focusing on customer service is another big plank of Hilltop’s appeal. “We really took that customer service first approach. That has always been the most important thing to us. Even if something is not working well on the network, having the customer in mind first and just telling the truth about what is going on,” Ryplewski explained.

After ten years in business, the company has grown considerably from the small tower Ryplewski started with. “It has really been a challenge keeping up with the growth, but at the same time, growth is obviously positive for the direction of our company,” he stated. Outside of Berthoud, Hilltop Broadband now has fiber optic cables in Greeley, Timnath, Longmont and some select buildings in downtown Denver.

The company also has operations in south-central Colorado across Chaffee, Freemont and Custer County. At the end of 2021, Custer County and Hilltop Broadband signed a public-private partnership to install fiber optic cables in the rural county’s main towns of Silver Cliff and Westcliffe.

If Hilltop Broadband received a contract to install fiber optic across Berthoud, Ryplewski said he would expect to hire five to 10 more in-house employees during the construction phase followed by “at least another three to five long-term employees that would be hired as part of maintaining the network and providing customer support,” he said.

Ryplewski stressed the benefits of a local broadband company over a major regional or national one for Berthoud’s needs. “We answer the phones locally, we know people by name, we see these people at the grocery store.”