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Elkhart County Broadband
Initiative
Elkhart County officials contracted with
Gram Tel and their partner company, Trans Tech, to construct a fiber
net-work backbone connecting each of the county's main 18 offices.
This connection, estimated at a cost of approximately $1.5 million,
would result in drastically increased high speed connectivity
between offices with an obvious cost benefit. The plan is to not only complete phase one of the
project, which will install the dark fiber backbone to connect downtown
Goshen with downtown Elkhart, but expand on it dramatically to
include all of the Elkhart County business community via additional
phases. The dark fiber will not have a specific vendor connected
with its use.
Phase 1 of the
Initiative will connect all 18 government buildings (shown on the
maps with red) and Phase 2 & 3 (shown on the maps with blue) will
provide our existing and future businesses an opportunity to tie
into the system. Timing and routes of Phase 2 & 3 is driven by
client need.
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Count Routes |
Elkhart City Routes |
Goshen City Routes |
Metro Net
The term Metro Net is derived
from a Metropolitan Area Network.
A metropolitan area network
(MAN) is a network that interconnects users with computer resources in a
geographic area or region via high-speed optical fiber that is designed
to carry voice, video, and data transmissions
Organizations
benefit from sharing the cost of infrastructure while gaining the
advantages of having a private high speed network
This network
will be a “dark” fiber network meaning that it will be vendor neutral
and can be “lit” or utilized by any carrier who desires to do so for
internet bandwidth, or utilized without a carrier for internal network
traffic
Who Benefits?
Elkhart County Government
Addresses their connectivity and infrastructure needs presenting
opportunities for ongoing cost savings and efficiency gains
Elkhart County Taxpayers
Contract with GramTel allows the County
to complete the project at less cost than it would have on their own due
to the GramTel investment
Elkhart County Businesses
Access to high speed fiber connectivity at a less expensive rate than
currently available
GramTel
Opportunity to build a data
center in Elkhart County to offer our services directly in this
marketplace
Elkhart County as a whole
Economic
development with this network available and marketed as a community
asset that benefits all of us.
