Mid-Atlantic Broadband completes BTOP middle mile project $1M under budget

The Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. (MBC), a wholesale open access transport provider, added an anomaly to the broadband stimulus buildout by completing its $20 million middle mile project $1 million under budget.

The network was funded with a $16 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant which was matched by a $4 million grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission.

Over this network, MBC and its service provider partners including Lumos Networks (Nasdaq: LMOS) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) will provide 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps service to every school in Southern Virginia.

Because MBC operates as an open-access wholesale transport business model it can ensure that schools will have competitive options for high speed services. 

To date, 68 of the 120 K-12 schools in southern Virginia are already using services off this new network.

Out of this group, a handful of schools have already replaced T1 lines with 10 Mbps connections, while others are using 50 and 100 Mbps circuits to connect the WAN side and provide a transport connection to their own ISP.

"What's been amazing with this fiber network done is we have several school districts that have switched from T1 services to fiber access with the private sector company and are paying less for services than T1 lines," Tad Deriso, president and CEO of MBC, told FierceTelecom.

For more:
- see the release

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