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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Knoxville Utilities Board is working to build municipal fiber internet infrastructure, giving everyone who gets electricity from KUB access to high-speed internet.

As they roll out the new fiber lines, they are also making improvements to existing systems. They said it's a part of their Century II program, which replaces and rehabilitates aging systems in the water, wastewater, natural gas and electricity infrastructure.

"At KUB, we're always looking ahead, anticipating, and planning for infrastructure enhancements," said Gabriel Bolas, the CEO of KUB. "Part of our long-term planning was about improving electric reliability by adding fiber-optic cables, which allowed us to envision delivering high-speed internet as a fifth utility for our customers."

They are also working to modernize substations across the area. They said the project is around 72% done and crews are building a new infeed substation, which can carry energy to another substation, bus or to other kinds of loads. They are also planning to build three new distribution substations to support the growth of their coverage area.

These substations basically convert electricity from either high to low voltage, or from low to high voltage as necessary. They take the kind of energy sent by larger KUB systems and send them to homes across a specific area.

KUB's fiber installation project is also expected to increase electric reliability by up to 40% once the 7-year project is over.

They said they are also replacing steel natural gas mains with polyethylene mains, which require less maintenance. In the last 5 years, KUB said it reduced its natural gas leak rate by around 50% through Century II improvements and integrity management programs.

They are also adding six new water filters with a 38 million-gallon-per-day capacity, and are also renovating wastewater pump stations. Two of those stations will be updated to increase their daily capacity by 8 million gallons.

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