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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 $45 Million Dollar Broadband Project Coming to Southern Illinois Harrisburg, IL - It was announced today that Delta Communications, LLC, dba Clearwave Communications, a southern Illinois company headquartered in Harrisburg, has been awarded $31.5 million in grant funds from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Through this project, Clearwave Communications will deploy a high-speed fiber middle mile network across a 23-county region of southern Illinois to address the lack of adequate broadband access for community anchor institutions in many of the region’s rural, economically distressed counties. The State of Illinois, through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), is also supporting the project by pledging over $11 million in matching funds. Additional private funding brings this southern Illinois project total to over $45 million. Over the next three years Clearwave will construct an estimated 740 miles of new fiber optic cable in southern Illinois to connect over 200 community anchor institutions with speeds between 10 Mbps and 1 Gbps, including K-12 public schools and institutions of higher learning, public safety entities, libraries, and healthcare facilities. Additionally, the project includes plans to offer points of interconnection for last-mile providers in the proposed service area. This project is part of the Illinois Broadband Opportunities Partnership (IBOP), in which Clearwave will be interconnecting with the Illinois Century Network (ICN), which provides a gateway to Internet2 for K-12 schools, libraries and non-research higher education institutions. Additionally, the funding will provide the Counties of Southern Illinois Next Generation 9-1-1 (CSI NG911), a consortium of Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), the network needed to facilitate the implementation of the nation’s first standards-based NG 9-1-1 public safety system. “This is a great opportunity, not just for Clearwave, but for the entire region”, says Clearwave’s president and founder, Scott Riggs. “This network will not only provide much needed connectivity to crucial community institutions, it will be a catalyst for desperately needed economic development in the area.” Clearwave Communications is a facilities-based Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) that has been providing advanced network services, primarily to businesses and community anchor institutions, and has been in business since 1995. Clearwave has locations in Harrisburg, Marion, and Carbondale. It currently serves 1,100 business customers throughout southern Illinois. Contact: Scott Riggs, President (618) 294-8000 | |