Pennsylvania's middle mile network initiative PennREN has given Quanta Services, a Houston, Texas-based infrastructure firm a $118.5 million contract to design and implement its statewide fiber network.
Quanta will work with PennREN through its Warrington, Penn.-based subsidiaries Sunesys and Blair Park Services to provide network installation. In addition, Quanta will provide $24 million in matching funds to complement PennREN's $99.6 million federal stimulus award.
Created through a joint partnership between the states universities and other anchor organizations, PennREN plans to begin building the 1,700 mile middle mile network, which will be housed at 13 anchor facilities and about 50 satellite sites along the middle part of the state, later this year. Similar to other middle mile network projects, PennREN will provide necessary optical connectivity to not only anchor institutions (schools, universities and hospitals), but also to smaller carriers that need to backhaul high bandwidth data and video traffic to major Internet hubs.
Set to stretch from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, PennREN said that some of the first segments of the network will be completed in early 2012, while the main segments will be completed by early 2013.
For more:
- Pittsburgh Post Gazette has this article
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