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Illinois Broadband Opportunity Partnership (IBOP)

The Illinois Broadband Opportunity Partnership is a state-wide coalition that was established to ensure that all communities in the State have access to affordable and sustainable communication services required to meet a wide range of critical needs, including those related to education, economic development, health care, public safety, and quality of life. To obtain these objectives, this partnership is engaged in multiple forward looking activities focused on developing policy, creating inter organizational and community partnerships, providing broadband technology assessment and guidance, creating rigorous financial plans, and communicating with constituencies. To continue to progress in these areas, the Illinois partnership has developed this proposal in response to the opportunity made possible by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Broadband Stimulus Funds program. This proposed initiative will be a catalyst that will allow the Illinois partnership to profoundly improve communications for underserved communities throughout the State. One key objective of this initiative will be to implement a State-wide core broadband foundation, based on optical fiber, that will connect multiple communities in the State in the near term and that will be used for additional development and expansion in the future. Similarly, each of the key regions participating in the Illinois partnership will implement core broadband foundation resources to meet near and long term needs.
 

Partners:

  • Illinois Department of Central Management Services
    • Illinois Broadband Opportunity Partnership – East Central Region
      The Illinois Department of Central Management Services plans to deploy a high-speed fiber middle mile network across a 55-county region of northeastern, central, and eastern Illinois to address a lack of suitable broadband access for community anchor institutions in many of the region’s rural, economically distressed counties. The Illinois Broadband Opportunity Partnership project plans to construct more than 1,000 miles of new fiber while upgrading just over 1,000 miles of the state’s existing education network, Illinois Century Network (ICN), which provides a gateway to advanced online applications for K-12 schools, libraries, and non-research higher education institutions. The project also proposes to interconnect with two round one BTOP awardees: DeKalb County’s DeKalb Advancement of Technology Authority Broadband project and University of Illinois Board of Trustees’ Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband project.
  • UC2B: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
    • Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband
      The Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband project plans to construct 187 miles of fiber-optic broadband network to provide high-speed connectivity to area community anchor institutions and support fiber-to-the-home services in four low-income neighborhoods. Known as a leader in computer networking technology, the University of Illinois plans to bring its experience to bear as it works to close the digital divide in Urbana-Champaign. The project will directly connect 143 anchor institutions, including 40 K-12 schools, 17 social service agencies, 14 healthcare facilities, nine youth centers, four public library systems, and two higher education institutions. A majority of these institutions expect to receive their first high-speed Internet connection via this project. The project proposes to create a fiber-to-the-home pilot project for 2,500 low-income households to purchase an affordable high-speed Internet service plan from commercial providers. In addition, the project expects to spur affordable broadband Internet access for local consumers, including up to 50,000 households and 3,700 businesses, by enabling local Internet service providers to connect to the project’s open network.
  • DeKalb County Government
    • DeKalb Advancement of Technology Authority Broadband
      The DeKalb Advancement of Technology Authority (DATA) Broadband project, a partnership between the DeKalb County Government, Northern Illinois University, and DeKalb Fiber Optic, plans to deploy a 130-mile fiber-optic network across DeKalb County and northern LaSalle County. The project is targeted to reach areas with a demonstrated need for high-speed, low-cost broadband access. The project expects to provide high-speed Internet connections between 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps to at least 60 anchor institutions, such as schools, hospitals, libraries, public safety entities, and numerous government agencies. The project will also enable broadband providers to interconnect with these facilities to provide broadband to households and businesses in unserved and underserved communities. The project design includes five networks overlaid on the fiber optic system— each network will be designed to meet the needs of a specific community: education and libraries, healthcare, the farming community, government and emergency services, and business and economic development.
  • Northern Illinois University
    • Illinois Broadband Opportunity Partnership Northwest Region
      Many community anchor institutions like libraries, K-12 schools, and community colleges in northwestern Illinois face limited broadband capacity, speeds, and service offerings, inhibiting the ability to serve their communities. To address this situation, Northern Illinois University is proposing to deploy an 870-mile network across a nine-county region including Jo Daviess, Stephenson, Winnebago, Boone, Carroll, Lee, Whiteside, Ogle, and LaSalle, significantly leveraging broadband technology for improvements in rural education, economic opportunities, and public safety.
  • Delta Communications, dba Clearwave Communications
    • Illinois Broadband Opportunity Partnership – Southern
      Delta Communications plans to deploy a high-speed fiber middle mile network across a 23-county region of southern Illinois to address the lack of adequate broadband access for community anchor institutions in many of the region’s rural, economically distressed communities. The project plans to double Delta’s network size by constructing 740 new miles of fiber in the proposed service area. The project will directly connect 232 community anchor institutions with speeds between 10 Mbps and 1 Gbps, including 111 K-12 public schools, 28 public safety entities, 23 libraries, nine community colleges, Southern Illinois University, and 60 healthcare facilities. The network plans to offer points of interconnection for last-mile providers in all 31 communities in the proposed service area.