With a $59 million Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant in hand, A2D is ready to begin building Trillion Telecommunications' 2,200 mile middle mile network to serve south central Alabama.
Expecting to create about 1,200 jobs, A2D held a seminar last Wednesday at Alabama State University where more than 30 vendors showed up so they can learn how to bid for work on the network, including wiring installation.
A2D, which is matching the BTOP grant with over $26 million of in-kind and private matching capital, will begin construction of an eight-county fiber network next month on Highway 80 just outside of Selma. Operating as a public-private partnership under a joint effort between A-PLUS Community Solutions and the Lowndes County Commission, the new network will serve eight Black Belt counties, including Lowndes, Dallas, Wilcox, Escambia, Conecuh, Macon, Crenshaw and Butler.
"In south central Alabama not a lot of people have access to this," said Antwon Alsobrook, founder and CEO of A2D.
Designed to offer a suite of wholesale services with speeds up to 1 Gpbs and transport services to unserved areas of south central Alabama, A2D said the network will provide either new and or improved broadband service to 72,000 households and 3,000 businesses by enabling local Internet service providers to utilize the project's open network at 45 points of interconnection.
In addition to helping existing and new competitive providers extend broadband services to homes, the network will provide direct connections to about 400 anchor institutions, including about 34 public safety entities, 91 K-12 schools, four libraries, five community colleges, two additional institutions of higher education, 16 healthcare facilities, and 219 government buildings and centers. Some of the colleges served by this new network include Auburn University, Miles College, Reed Technical College, Alabama State University and Tuskegee University.
For more:
- WSFA-TV (Montgomery, Ala.) has this video
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