On Tuesday, The Goulding Agency notified us that the existing Mainstreet Broadband service, barring unforeseen disaster, should remain active until a new service is in place. Reportedly, within a month or so, the new high speed internet service should be available to an even larger consumer base than previously offered by Mainstreet Broadband.

Mainstreet Broadband announced on August First that they were shutting down services and issued a ‘Notice to Customers and Vendors’ on their web site saying: ‘We regret to inform you that as of today, August 1, 2012, Broadband South LLC is forced to cease operations. Despite certain assurances, we have been unable to reach an agreement with our senior lender, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service that would have enabled us to continue operations. We encourage you to make immediate arrangements for an alternative broadband supplier, as the network will eventually be shut down. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.”

This action left thousands of customers without internet service and in some cases also affected related phone service. Main Street Broadband received more than $2.5 million from Decatur County in Georgia taxpayers, signing a contract on December 8, 2009 with the intention of creating a wireless broadband high-speed Internet service that could provide Internet connections to any Decatur County citizen. Decatur County has obviously been scrambling to deal with the situation.

The new company will serve Florida and Georgia and will be installing a new, larger capacity fiber optic cable which will allow greater bandwidth and faster connectivity.