The build connects the Illinois communities of Aurora, Dixon, DeKalb, Sterling and Rock Falls to Bluebird’s Midwest fibre footprint delivering such services as dedicated fibre internet, data centre solutions and cloud connectivity services to new customers.
The build also provides a diverse route to Chicago bolstering the resiliency of Bluebird’s already ultra-reliable fibre network.
“This is an important strategic build for Bluebird Network and I’m incredibly excited about it,” says Michael Morey, president and CEO of Bluebird Network.
“Our vision is to have a fibre presence in 80% of communities across our 11-state footprint with reach to a population greater than 10,000 people. This expansion across Illinois gets us closer to realising our vision.”
In addition, the new route to Chicago enables Bluebird to offer its data centre solutions to more customers in America’s third largest metro region as well as giving customers the ability to connect to key global telecoms hubs.
Most recently Bluebird announced its intent to acquire the middle-mile fibre network assets from Missouri Telecom (MTI), thereby adding fibre assets in Southern Missouri; and two builds expanding their network into Salina, Kansas and Waterloo, Iowa.
Additionally, alongside the company's ongoing day-to-day fibre construction, Bluebird will have built nearly 290 miles of new owned fibre, connected 441 new on-net buildings, and installed 1,386 additional access points in the past year.
“The new fibre route miles and on-net buildings speak for themselves,” adds Jamie Scott, Bluebird Network, Director of Outside Plant.
“The large number of access points – locations where we splice new fibre – we added this year, allows our engineering and sales teams to be more flexible and reach more customers throughout our network.”
