Our History

Why the concern about a fiber optic network for Northwest Illinois and the Rock River Valley ?

As with roads, airports, water and in many cases energy systems, communities have always been in the business of creating and maintaining infrastructure for the good of the community. The private sector depends on this infrastructure to move raw materials, people, and products. Increasingly, the needed transportation systems move information, global data, messages, video and voice. The communities that have the best infrastructures attract more business.

This business plan is based on a regional community effort to make available an ultra high speed fiber optic based network utility infrastructure at world class prices. This carrier class network will allow regional businesses, health care providers, municipalities, not-for-profits, and school districts to connect locations and to access the general Internet networks at 10Mbps to 1000 Mbps speeds. They will be able to do this at prices that are comparable to private sector offerings that are up to 10 times slower. Competitive service providers will be able to utilize this network to offer numerous value added services, with base costs that are much lower than are currently available.

Why is a community effort needed? Basic fiber-optic technology has been available for years. Thousands of miles of fiber backbone cable has been laid, much of it now unused because the private sector has not made the investment to take fiber “the last mile” into homes and businesses. No single service provider could consolidate the fractured market sufficiently to justify the investment to shareholders who are fixated on short-term profitability. As stated by the Gartner Group in June 2002,

“The local exchange carriers, cable companies and new competitors have promised but have failed to deliver, primarily because it is not in their interest nor business model to provide ubiquitous broadband services. The bottom line is that the profits are just not there…”

This is particularly true in less densely populated areas of the country. The economics for the current private sector providers are that costs are denominated in distance (per mile) and revenue are denominated in ‘transaction density'. Stated another way, opportunities to maximize profitability on new investment favor densely populated areas of the country where ‘dark fiber' exists.

The United States was once the undisputed leader in Internet innovation and development (as recently as the 1990's). Because of the disconnect between public sector need and private sector constraints, and new federal policy priorities the United States has fallen from 4 th to13th from 2001 to 2003(and continues to fall) in terms of broadband deployment in a globally competitive world. The nation's leading in broadband deployment will reap the benefits of economic growth, increased

productivity, and a better quality of life. Nations lagging in this arena will see the acceleration of the overseas movement of manufacturing and knowledge worker jobs.

Currently, there are over 200 community broadband initiatives in this country helping their communities overcome this problem. If this region does not move forward now, we will not only lose more jobs to overseas, but increasingly to other states. And our

desire to attract new kinds of business, educational, and lifestyle opportunities hinges on our transportation and telecommunications infrastructure.

A good business environment is essential to maintaining and enhancing quality of life. Thus, the long-term objective of this initiative is to enhance the quality of life in Northwest Illinois and the Rock River Valley by connecting to the world through fiber optic networks.