ICN Letter to Constituents

Dear ICN Constituents,

You have or will soon be contacted by representatives of Clearwave Communications regarding their ARRA Broadband Grant. Within their grant, your facility has been identified as a Community Anchor Institution and a site which would receive a direct fiber optic link into their high speed data network. As an Illinois Broadband Opportunity Partner (IBOP), Clearwave is working closely with Illinois Century Network and other partners around the state to expand broadband access throughout Illinois. Clearwave Communications, serving your area, applied for and has been awarded federal and state dollars to build a high speed fiber optic network in southern Illinois, similar to the ICN IBOP-EC project which targeted 55 counties in northeastern, central and west-central Illinois. Together, the ICN, Clearwave Communications and the other IBOP partner projects will significantly change the broadband landscape in Illinois and expand access for our Community Anchor Institutions, like your organization, as well as your business and residential community.

By the time this three year project is complete and service on the new fiber network begins, Clearewave Communications will be prepared to not only offer fiber connectivity, higher bandwidth access at significantly reduced costs, but will also be able to offer a number of the services you currently receive from ICN. Services include Quality of Service for critical applications where guaranteed bandwidth is necessary, bandwidth monitoring similar to the ICN MRTG graphs, hardware and circuit management and proactive technical support.

Additionally, due to the extensive collaborative effort that ICN and Clearwave Communications have been developing, Clearwave Communications will be able to transparently pass traffic to ICN to support specific ICN based constituent needs such as collaborative efforts with universities, Voice or Video services or even secondary/redundant internet services connections.

ICN staff meets regularly with Clearwave Communications staff on a host of issues both technical and operational. Our networks will intersect and ICN will use Clearwave Communications network resources to extend our network into southeastern Illinois, and Clearwave Communications will use ICN to reach Egress and other Internet resources in Chicago or St. Louis and to pass traffic to content providers and shared services hosted within Illinois. Our staff will ensure a continuity of services between our networks including Quality of Service, monitoring and technical support. ICN is working with Clearwave Communications to provide a way for ICN to continue to provide you with most or all of the support services you currently receive from ICN if you determine that to be the best route for your organization.

Your organization will play a critical role in helping expand the IBOP broadband initiatives by working with Clearwave Communications and taking advantage of their offering of a high speed fiber connection. ICN staff will assist in this process and I encourage you to work with your RTC offices as we move forward together. Please feel free to contact me and thank you.

Robin Woodsome
Illinois Century Network, CMS, BCCS
State of Illinois
312.814.9698
Robin.Woodsome@illinois.gov
www.illinois.net/ibop