A new opportunity for high speed Internet is coming to Southern Illinois.
Clearwave Communications received word Wednesday it has been awarded $45 million to deploy a high speed fiber middle mile network across a 23-county region in Southern Illinois.
"It will be a 740 mile fiber optic network put in the ground to help connect our anchor institutions," company President Scott Riggs said.
Anchor institutions include schools, hospitals, libraries and county 911 systems.
Riggs described the line as a backbone or pipeline with the ability to connect to Internet providers St. Louis, Mo., and Chicago.
"Let's say it's a big pipeline with the ability to send 10 megabytes (per second) and above over this highway. Southern Illinois does not provide connectors to carrier hotels in St. Louis. We'll have a backbone to get it down to us," Riggs said.
The cable will also connect 18 911 systems together to form the Next Generation 911, a pilot program in Illinois for the nation. That gives dispatchers in 18 counties the ability to answer 911 calls in the case all 911 lines are tied up in the local area.
Riggs said Clearwave expects to take 2 1/2 years to install the line.
The money involves a $31.5 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The state through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is pledging $11 million and the rest of the $45 million comes from private funding, according to a release from Clearwave.
