Bridgewater, County, & U.S. Rep. Dingell meet with Mercury to try to get broadband project moving again
August 25, 2026 meeting in Bridgewater. Photo courtesy of Dingell’s office.
by Sara Swanson
We reported in January that Bridgewater Township is the last township in the county that is still waiting on broadband under the County’s plan to provide a broadband option to every household. This is because Mercury Broadband LLC, the company contracted to do this, stopped work in Bridgewater in 2024. After more than a year of silence from Mercury on this project, there may be news soon!
Unlike the areas funded by the county directly, most of the Bridgewater Township area was awarded Rural Digital Opportunity Funding (RDOF), which is administered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and gives the county no direct access to Mercury. This meant enlisting U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell to pressure the FCC and serve as an intermediary.
Dingell’s office began corresponding with Mercury and was able to set up a meeting on August 25 which was attended by Mercury’s new CEO, Kwame Trotman, Mercury co-founder Blake Wiseman VP of Technology and Network Operations, Bridgewater township supervisor, Laurie Fromhart, and Chris Scharrer, owner of DCS technology, who oversaw the broadband project for County.
Fromhart and Scharrer report that Trotman asked for 30 days to allow him time to assess the project to determine if it is still financially feasible for Mercury to continue the build-out in Bridgewater, a deadline approaching at the end of this week.
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