HAGERSTOWN, Md. (WDVM) — The Hagerstown mayor and city council signed off on a license agreement with a local internet provider, allowing for the expansion of fiber-optic cables throughout the city.

“The investment would provide a competitive broadband solution for all of Hagerstown,” said Clint Wiley, owner of Hagerstown Fiber. “There’s job creation associated with this. Several dozen jobs over the period of the next year or two.”

Hagerstown Fiber already has an agreement with the city, as well as Verizon, to use utility poles for its business; however, the company partnered up with Point Broadband of the Piedmont, a company out of Georgia, to fund the installation of cables underground through a technique called micro-trenching

“Traditionally, fiber-optics communication, electrics, when it’s placed underground, it’s buried a couple of feet deep and it’s placed in a conduit system,” says Rodney Tissue, the city engineer. “This system is micro-trenching in that it’s only 6 to 8 inches deep. It’s in the pavement itself.”

City officials estimate that this process is roughly 50 percent cheaper than the normal way to install fiber-optic cables and only expect it to be done in the portions of the city that do not have utility poles.