Middle mile provider Sovernet wins 92-site network contract from state of Vermont

Sovernet Communications, a Vermont-based middle mile provider, has won two separate contracts totaling $2.5 million by the state of Vermont to provide data services to 92 sites.

In the first contract, Sovernet will provide WAN service to Vermont's Department of Information and Innovation (DII), connecting 77 locations throughout the state.

Delivered over Sovernet's 900-mile network, it will provide Ethernet-based inter-office connectivity with speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps, with the ability to scale to 100 Gbps when needed.

For the second contract, Sovernet will provide WAN services to 15 Vermont State College (VSC) sites, including Lyndon State, Castleton State and Vermont Technical College campuses, and numerous Community College of Vermont academic centers.

These wins come at a critical time for Sovernet. In January the service provider announced that it nearly completed its $48 million fiber optic network. Upon completion, the network will connect 115 governmental locations, 108 schools, 42 health-care facilities, 40 libraries and 32 colleges.

Sovernet's new 800-mile middle network was funded through a mix of public and private funds. In 2010 it won a $33.4 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. It supplemented the NTIA grant with $2.1 million from Vermont Telecommunications Authority and $12.2 million of its own money.

The service provider's subsidiary Independent Optical Networks (ION), an Albany-based provider focused on serving rural communities in upstate New York and parts of Pennsylvania and Vermont, completed its middle mile network project in January.

For more:
- see the release

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