Shentel to provide dark, lit fiber network services in Harrisonburg City, Virginia

Shentel won a contract to provide dark fiber connecting Harrisonburg, Virginia’s municipal buildings as well as providing lit fiber and dedicated internet access to the city’s school district buildings.

The City of Harrisonburg selected Shentel to be their fiber network provider following what it said was an “exhaustive” review.

Paul Malabad, IT director for the city of Harrisonburg, said in a release that a key benefit for the city in working with Shentel was accessibility to the company.

“Shentel is regionally headquartered, which means local support, and they have a historically great reputation,” Malbad said.

Although Shentel is managing the network, the city has the option to scale data capabilities based on their needs. Shentel also leverages their E-Rate expertise by providing K-12 customers, such as the Harrisonburg City Schools, and libraries with network designs of up to 100 Gbps speeds.

Having continued to build out a fiber network to serve its internal needs, including backhauling traffic from its existing wireline and wireless network, Shentel has been winning new dark and lit fiber deals with local municipality school districts and wireless operators. The service provider has built out a total of nearly 5,000 route miles of fiber throughout Virginia, West Virginia and parts of Maryland.

Wireless backhaul continues to be a major focus. In addition to building out fiber to its own towers and those it purchased from the NTELOS acquisition, Shentel told FierceTelecom in a previous interview that it is “selling fiber services to the top five wireless carriers either directly or through partnerships with other wholesale carriers.”

Driven by changes in the E-Rate regime that allows schools to purchase dark fiber, Shentel is also growing its presence in the education segment. In Virginia and West Virginia, Shentel currently has contracts with over 16 school systems that have awarded the telco contracts to build out fiber to their facilities. It is talking with another 12 for similar deals.

For more:
- see the release

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