High-speed fiber coming to south Elma, Porter and Cedarville

Published 1:30 am Monday, April 13, 2026

Later this spring, Phase 4 of the Grays Harbor PUD high-speed fiber internet expansion in south Elma, Porter and Cedarville will be reached. This means that residents who have had to contend with years of lack of internet access or slow upload/download speeds will soon have access to high-speed internet.

Expanding high-speed internet to this underserved area of Grays Harbor County has been a goal of Grays Harbor PUD for the past eight years.

“We had a lot of requests from residents and businesses throughout that south Elma-Porter area and so we did some digging to see if there were any grants coming onboard that would support an unserved, underserved broadband area,” said Sara Travers, telecom business coordinator with the Grays Harbor PUD.

In 2018, Grays Harbor PUD applied for a Public Works Board grant through the Department of Commerce. The Public Works Board, which was formed in 1985, funds projects that “promote public health and safety, protect the environment, promote community and economic development, and broadband connectivity.”

Their grant was denied due to lack of sufficient evidence regarding the need. To collect that evidence, Grays Harbor PUD submitted a grant request to fund a feasibility study. The grant was awarded, and the feasibility study confirmed what residents were saying.

“The area is indeed underserved, and so that was great news for us because we knew that we could go forward with applying for a construction grant at that point,” Travers said.

In 2022, Grays Harbor PUD submitted another application to the Public Works Board to fund a broadband expansion project — which was denied again. This time the reason was because Comcast claimed they were serving the underserved area; however, their service only extended to downtown Oakville.

“According to the bylaws that they [the Public Works Board] had in place at that time, they were unable to fund our request because of that specific area being served,” said Travers. “After that happened, they changed their bylaws, because they did recognize that was really an unfortunate situation for the PUD. So in retrospect, us being denied funds actually helped because we did get those laws changed.”

Now when applications regarding expanding internet access are submitted, the Public Works Board looks at where the existing infrastructure is already being provided and what the proposed route will be.

Additionally, the Public Works Board allows you to modify the application instead of going back through the process, said Aaron Mefford, core services director for the Grays Harbor PUD.

“Instead of a strict denial, they would give you a heads up that this is what they’re looking at, so if you would like to modify your scope, you can do so now with no penalty,” added Travers.

Having been denied funds for an expansion project through the Public Works Board, the Grays Harbor PUD looked elsewhere for funding, one of which was the Washington State Broadband Office, which is also part of the Department of Commerce. This office had American Rescue Plan Act funding that could be used in support of expanding broadband to underserved communities.

“And there was a major need there, especially the Cedarville rural area of Oakville where kids had absolutely no service and they were trying to do homework from home and they were having to actually drive into the school where we had put a hotspot for them to do that,” Travers said. “So we applied for that [funding] and we were very successful.”

In 2023, the Washington State Broadband Office awarded Grays Harbor PUD $6.9 million to fund high-speed fiber internet expansion into south Elma, Cedarville and Porter, which had, based upon the feasibility study, 504 homes and businesses that could benefit from the expansion. Through this grant, Grays Harbor PUD would install the fiber infrastructure and cover the cost of connecting the houses and business, called fiber drops, to these newly installed fiber lines.

After scoping out the engineering and design of the project, in 2025 Grays Harbor PUD rolled out an application process for residents and businesses. Already there have been 392 processed applications, which is 78 percent of the 504 potential homes and businesses that the feasibility identified. Phase 2, which was the backbone fiber construction, has been completed and was contracted to Paramount Communications.

Of the work completed, Travers sharing the following stats: 85,885 feet of underground fiber installed, 201,392 feet of aerial fiber installed, 411 vaults placed and 604 splices completed. To accomplish this work took 17,310 labor hours.

Regarding the installation, “there weren’t very many issues that came up,” said Travers. “The only thing was quite a bit of underground construction, and toward the northern part of the project, there’s a lot of private lanes. But everybody has been very eager and accepting because they’re very excited to get broadband.”

Now in Phase 3, fiber drops to the residences and businesses are underway, with Phase 4, the electronics installation, scheduled to begin in mid-April.

Applications can still be submitted, however, there is an advised signup date by Sept. 1 to ensure that fiber drops and equipment installation is completed before Oct. 31. Applicants submitting after Oct. 31 will have to pay the cost of the fiber drop.

“[Drops] can be the most expensive part but the way that we designed [the project], we alleviated a lot of that cost so it should still be affordable even if a new house comes in or something changes for somebody out there,” said Mefford.

Regarding how long it will take to do the fiber drops after an application is submitted, it can vary depending upon if the contractor is working in the area but generally there is a quick turnaround.

Some of the residents turned in applications quite a while ago, but they weren’t actually in the drop installation phase, Mefford said.

“But Sarah’s done a great job right from the beginning, starting to get that list built up, so when we were ready for the drop installation phase, Paramount has been working through these very quickly,” Mefford said.

When Grays Harbor PUD applied for the grant, they had estimated 40 percent of the 504 residents and businesses would submit an application.

“We are double what we thought we were going to be,” Travers said.

Once Phase 4 is completed, the end of May is an estimated time for the residents to connect to the internet but there will be testing first.

“We’re going to actually have some champions of this project, that’s we’ve called them who have been in our corner fighting for this for a while, we’re going to have them turned on first just to make sure that we get all of our kinks worked out since this is the first GPOM [Gigabyte-Capable Passive Optical Network] project that we’ve ever done,” said Travers. “We want to make sure that we have everything in a production.”

The service providers that residents can choose from will be those already vetted by Grays Harbor PUD, and they are amending their contracts to include grant requirements, such as delivered speed and reporting of speed tests, if they will serve this new area.

“I live right here in Hoquiam and there’s a few providers that are available, but I’m envious of the service level that those folks out there are going to have,” Mefford said.

Having been involved with this project since 2018 and now seeing it nearly completed “is pretty satisfying,” said Travers.

Residents living south Elma, Porter and Cedarville who haven’t already submitted an application can do so at https://www.ghpud.org/about-us/telecommunications/south-elma-porter-cedarville-fiber-application/. For questions, contact telecom@ghpud.org or 360 537-3700 for questions. Sign up by Sept. 1 to ensure the installation is completed before Oct. 31.