Loveland Pulse: Our commitment to transparency

A trusted utility connecting the Loveland community. That is who we are at Pulse, and transparency is key to how we operate. Since the moment City Council approved the project in November 2018, we have been working to set Loveland up for success.

Pulse is a City of Loveland utility and, unlike most other city services, we are operating in a competitive consumer services environment with a need to maintain key proprietary information. We recognize that this is a new model for our community and know it can take some time to understand how this affects operations.

Municipal broadband continues to expand across our state and the nation, addressing the significant digital divide and access needs of our people and our communities. Community-owned broadband is essential infrastructure and each city moving forward is pursuing it differently. Here at Pulse, we exist to meet the needs of our community by bringing affordable, reliable, high-speed internet backed by great customer service to everyone. A critical part of our success is staying true to our core values and our promises to you:

• Be a trusted service.
• Remain committed to transparency about rates (when they are announced), speeds, and more.
• Be responsive to customer needs.

To deliver on these promises, from the start, Pulse has worked to develop and provide a variety of communication and connection options, including:

• Loveland Communications Advisory Board (LCAB) public meetings: Our LCAB meets the second Wednesday of every month from 4 - 6 p.m at the City of Loveland Service Center. Each month, this board, along with City Council liaisons, receives an update from staff about the project and discusses Pulse matters. It is also an avenue for public citizens to learn directly and voice any comments, questions, or concerns. Meeting participation information and agendas can be found at cityofloveland.org/LCAB.
• Monthly reporting: We provide a monthly fiber to the premise dashboard to City Council. This dashboard is also available on our website, LovelandPulse.com. Until service is available, this dashboard focuses on project and construction highlights including where we are at with budget and construction completion. Once we start subscribing customers, the dashboard will be updated with service information including home installs.
• Budget: Like all other City departments, our budget is included in the City of Loveland’s budget process which is reported in various financial documents such as the Annual Budget Books and the City of Loveland’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). There are several public meetings in this process, including presentations to LCAB and the Citizens’ Finance Advisory Commission (CFAC) for review and discussion, prior to review of these documents and final adoption by the City Council.
• Regular communication updates: We will continue to provide regular project updates on our communication channels, with LovelandPulse.com being the hub for this information. We offer several ways for residents and businesses to contact us directly - email, phone and submitting information online. We strive to respond to residents within 48 business hours.
• Community connections: Our team has and will continue to be out and about in the community to engage with residents and businesses in Loveland as service becomes available. As your local, reliable internet provider, we value the opportunity to connect directly with you.

Among the few details that will not be publicly released over the next three to four years are construction and service rollout maps and timelines. There are several reasons for this. In a private business environment, this is what is referred to as proprietary information that could provide a potential competitive advantage to others in the market. Pulse is no different in that regard. We recognize that it can be easy to spot our construction crews around town (we love Colorado Boring’s big beautiful yellow trucks!) but it makes good business sense to protect this proprietary information so we can be good stewards of the community’s investment in Pulse. This is a best practice learned by and shared with us by other successful municipal broadband utilities.

More importantly, releasing maps and plans would pose a safety and security issue. As an essential utility with critical infrastructure that includes physical and cybersecurity assets, our maps include infrastructure and engineering design specifics that help us plan construction work. These critical and vital details need to remain guarded to ensure the safety and welfare of our community, customers, and network.

We recognize that residents want answers and information, and have implemented several proactive ways to communicate directly about construction and service. We are mailing letters and placing door hangers at each residence and business ahead of construction in their area. Those wanting to be directly notified when service is available in their area can fill out our early interest form (LovelandPulse.com/EarlyInterest) to get on that list.

As always, be sure to connect with us on social media, check out our FAQs, and ask us your questions on our website, LovelandPulse.com, and feel free to email us at Pulse@cityofloveland.org or call 970-962-2010 with any questions, comments or concerns.

On behalf of the Pulse team, your trusted, local communications utility, we thank you for your continued confidence in our efforts and look forward to installing your Pulse service in the near future.