Steve Hunt is sitting on a vibratory plow – a roughly 25,000-pound machine used to install fiber cables underground.
Hunt is one of the plow operators for Henkels & McCoy at Archtop Fiber’s work zone in Bethel, New York. Typically, he’s stringing bright orange protective conduits about 24 to 30 inches into the ground.
Hunt plans to lay more than 4,000 feet of conduit that afternoon, a process that requires highly-skilled machinery operators.
“That’s why we don’t recommend anybody that doesn’t have any experience because you can really mess yourself up, damage equipment, and hurt yourself or others,” said Hunt. “We always like to have experienced operators on site.”
The plow operation is part of Sullivan County’s countywide broadband project. Archtop Fiber, a Kingston-based phone and internet provider, has partnered with Sullivan County to bring high-speed internet to more than 22,000 homes and businesses across the county.
The nearly $30 million project is funded by New York state’s ConnectALL program and is the single largest broadband investment Sullivan County has ever seen.
Archtop Fiber broke ground in June 2025 and saw its first county customers in Liberty connected to the network this past May. It’s since installed more than 210 miles of conduit, according to county officials.
Shawn Beqaj, co-founder and chief development officer at Archtop Fiber, says the project will be “completely transformational” for residents.
“I think there was a time where the internet was a nice-to-have item. It is now clearly if you are in a home and you don’t have access to stable and reliable internet [at] affordable costs, you are disadvantaged,” said Beqaj.
Still, installing hundreds of miles of internet fiber in a mountainous terrain like the Catskills hasn’t been easy, says Mike Haney, Archtop Fiber’s Area Construction Manager.
“It has created problems, and we’ve actually set more poles than we wanted, maybe licensed more poles than we wanted because the ground conditions just weren’t conducive,” said Haney.
While plowing through frozen ground has made restoration operations messier, Archtop says it’s significantly more durable to lay fiber conduits underground and less susceptible to ice storms.
Archtop Fiber says they’re trying to complete the project by December 2026, but Sullivan County has received an extension to complete the project by June 2027.
Sullivan County residents can see if their home is covered at connectsullivan.com.