The Rural Nebraska Health Care Network announced yesterday a network build that will connect 9 primary care hospitals and dozens of affiliated clinics. The new fiber will help bring state of the art medical technology networks to underserved areas. These facilities are currently fed by T1’s – fiber will make a big difference. They will be partnering with Zayo Group, which will put up a share of the funding, supplemented by some $19M in funds from the FCC’s Rural Health Care Pilot Program. This was interesting to me, because as far as I know Zayo has no fiber in Nebraska yet. This will be entirely new territory to them.
The proposed 750 mile fiber network spans 12 counties in western Nebraska. That’s right, western Nebraska – not Omaha or Lincoln where fiber operators usually hang out. For Zayo, this looks like an expansion of its Colorado presence to the northeast. While there is federal funding, this is not a stimulus grant. Adesta LLC, which specializes in turnkey fiber builds amongst other things, will be doing the actual build and is expected to break ground this summer and should be completed in the fall of 2011. Hmmm, Adesta – that’s where Zayo’s Denver conduit assets originally derived from, isn’t it. Interesting…
For its part, Zayo will emerge with a rather unique footprint in the state and will be able to bring middle mile and other services to communities across the region.
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This is cash for clunkers without the actual or perceived “benefit to humanity” part…. Zayo should open another subsidiary – can focus on free stimulus gifts & unrepeatable revenue anomalies. What’s next – FTTP (fiber to the prison)? Or FTTT (fiber to the toll booth)?
By the way, Anyone getting by on T-1’s doesn’t need subsidized fiber. Maybe another T-1 or even a DS3…