Hays ? Some residents of Hays are getting service from a new fiber optic project that will eventually wire all of Ellis County.

The project is part of a federally-funded $101 million project for Rural Telephone and its subsidiary Nex-Tech. The project is expected to continue in Hays through 2012. Work on outlying areas of Ellis County is scheduled to be completed by year’s end.

A spokesman for Nex-Tech says the service is connecting to homes but no residents are required to sign up for it. Fiber optics provides ultra high-speed Internet, telephone service and television simultaneously.

The Hays Daily News reports that in addition to connecting to individual homes, Nex-Tech’s contractors are installing a fiber “backbone” that will allow sections of the city to have connections to the service.