Latest / Kendall County News - Shaw Local / Plan to bring high-speed internet to 15,000 homes across underserved areas of Kendall County takes next step
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- 0:05Speaker 1: Plan to bring high speed internet to fifteen thousand homes
- 0:08Speaker 1: across underserved areas of Kendall County takes next step. Written
- 0:14Speaker 1: by Eric Shelkopf, This article is being read by an
- 0:18Speaker 1: automated voice brought to you by Everlett. A project to
- 0:22Speaker 1: bring high speed internet to unserved and underserved areas of
- 0:26Speaker 1: Kendall County continues to move ahead. Fox Fiber, a new
- 0:30Speaker 1: nonprofit entity, has officially launched the Kendall County Broadband Initiative,
- 0:35Speaker 1: a community owned network that will deliver high speed fiber
- 0:38Speaker 1: and wireless internet to approximately fifteen thousand homes, businesses, farms,
- 0:43Speaker 1: and public institutions. The first phase of the project will
- 0:47Speaker 1: pass approximately four thousand, seven hundred addresses, bringing fiber connectivity
- 0:51Speaker 1: to communities including Lisbon, Millbrook, Millington, Montgomery, Newark, Oswego, Platteville,
- 0:58Speaker 1: and Yorkville. This is the future of connectivity, Kendall County
- 1:03Speaker 1: Board Member Zach Bachman, the chair of the Kendall County Commission,
- 1:07Speaker 1: had said previously in talking about the project, if this
- 1:11Speaker 1: model works, it can be adopted by other communities to
- 1:14Speaker 1: have them get this type of service because what this
- 1:17Speaker 1: project is doing is not just doing something that's going
- 1:20Speaker 1: to make a company as much money as possible. This
- 1:24Speaker 1: is meeting our community at the index where its need
- 1:26Speaker 1: is at. I could not be more proud of this
- 1:29Speaker 1: and excited, Bachmann said. The launch includes the integration of
- 1:33Speaker 1: Newark net Ink into Foxfiber and the sale of about
- 1:37Speaker 1: thirty one million dollars in tax exempt bonds alongside a
- 1:40Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars grant from the Illinois Office of Broadband
- 1:44Speaker 1: to pay for the project. The project will be built
- 1:47Speaker 1: with no tax burden on residents and will be sustained
- 1:51Speaker 1: through network revenue. Last September, the Kendall County Board approved
- 1:56Speaker 1: Denver based technology firm Pivot Tech Development, to the county's
- 2:00Speaker 1: partner for building the broadband system. This is Kendall County's network,
- 2:06Speaker 1: built by local people, overseen by a local board, and
- 2:09Speaker 1: designed to serve this community for decades. Pivot Tech Development
- 2:12Speaker 1: CEO Jim Cannon said in a news release. We are
- 2:16Speaker 1: not a distant corporation entering the market. We are building
- 2:19Speaker 1: infrastructure that stays here, serves here, and is accountable here,
- 2:23Speaker 1: he said.