Comcast will soon have more competition for high speed Internet customers in Manteca.

The city has been working with a number of providers to “wire” Manteca with fiber optic lines in a bid to not only bring competition to the marketplace to benefit consumers but to also sharpen its competitiveness for  snagging employers as well as using technology to improve traffic flow among other initiatives.

Crews from Vast Networks in recent weeks have been installing fiber lines down Moffat Boulevard, Spreckles Avenue, East Yosemite Avenue Center Street, West Yosemite Avenue west of Union Road and south down Airport Way.

The current council has made luring more high speed fiber service a top priority.

They have already approved placing fiber in the Daniels Street extension project taking place this spring to extend the street where it now ends by Costco to McKinley Avenue. Wave has already agreed to lease one of the five fiber lines at $1.44 a linear foot so they can serve what will be the Central Valley’s largest hotel ever built — the 500-room Great Wolf Lodge resort and indoor waterpark — as well as the city’s envisioned family entertainment zone.

Vast also plans connections to the Stadium Retail Center as well as the city’s “Class A” office space parcel at Daniels and Fishback Avenue. A firm is currently exploring with the city the possibility of establishing a multiple-story office building at that location next to where Staybridge Suites is planning to build a four story hotel with 101 rooms.

The owners of The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley that’s anchored by Bass Shops have approved a deal with Ayera to provide free public WiFi at the shopping complex.

Manteca has also secured a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Grant for the initial phase of a project that will run fiber from Union Road to Main Street via Yosemite Avenue.

They have also applied for a $4 million grant to extend that fiber to other signals. When combined with a federal grant they have already secured to modernize and synchronize traffic signal timing, a system will be in place that will the coordination of traffic light signals in real time to reduce delays and congestion at peak travel times.

Ultimately that system may be tied into one that Caltrans envisions along the Highway 99, 120 Bypass and Interstate 205 corridors tying signals together throughout the South County to make adjustments for traffic congestion and when accidents disrupt traffic.

The City Council, in a bid to take wiring Manteca to the next step, has issued a request for qualified firms to develop a fiber Master Plan for the City that will assess the City’s total fiber bandwidth needs, determine local stakeholders and potential regional partners, identify available conduit resources, assess fiber needs for local and future businesses, explore a municipal fiber network, and develop a management, maintenance and financing model.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com