Mishawaka, IN, Fiber Network Now Open to Businesses

MISHAWAKA, IN - The city of Mishawaka has signed an agreement to open its fiber optic network to area businesses. According to the deal, the city will remain owner of the network and St. Joe Valley Metronet Inc. will manage, monitor and maintain it. This agreement gives Mishawaka a new economic development asset that will increase its ability to attract investment to the area. The nonprofit Metronet was formed as a public-private partnership to correct an economic development deficiency by expanding and improving high-bandwidth connectivity while lowering its cost.

This agreement assigns management, monitoring and maintenance of the city's fiber network to Metronet and, for the first time, allows Mishawaka businesses and organizations to take advantage of the ultra-fast, ultra-high-bandwidth and cost-effective telecommunications opportunities Metronet offers. The city retains ownership of the fiber network and it will continue to serve its original purpose: connecting city and Mishawaka Utilities facilities.

"While Metronet's network already extends more than 60 miles throughout St. Joseph County, this brings significant expansion into Mishawaka, especially on the south and east sides of the city,” said Mary Jan Hedman, executive director of Metronet. “More businesses and organizations now will have access to Metronet Zing." Metronet Zing is the county’s dark fiber optic network offering unlimited bandwidth.

Ken Prince, Mishawaka's city planner, explained that excess capacity was built into the city's network six years ago when it was installed to provide communications and data services connections between utility substations and city facilities. "Metronet's dark fiber network represents a perfect model and a real opportunity to extend use of the city’s fiber," Prince said.

Metronet's dark fiber model offers infrastructure to subscribers, who then choose from competing service providers or use their own equipment to light the fiber. Subscribers may connect directly to other sites to quickly exchange large amounts of data, connect to offsite data storage and backup facilities, use cloud computing or any of many other technology services.

Metronet links to national fiber optic networks at Union Station in downtown South Bend. This agreement saves the city of Mishawaka the expense of building its own connection to the carrier hotel at Union Station, Hedman explained. It also gives the city's sites the reassurance of Metronet's continuous monitoring and on-call troubleshooting and repair support.