Originally posted to Data Center POST

Missouri, like many states across the U.S., is striving to provide its rural residents with access to high-speed broadband. By the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) definition, high-speed Internet is 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. FCC data indicates that 1.25 million Missourians, or 20 percent of the state population, currently do not have access to high-speed Internet. The majority of Missouri’s citizens without access to broadband live in rural areas, creating a digital divide that government officials and certain network service providers are determined to solve.

Bluebird Network, a telecom company based in the Midwest, focuses on providing high bandwidth to both rural and urban areas in the Midwest, connecting rural areas to major cities.  Bluebird Network recently announced it built its first customer-facing 100G diverse circuits in response to increased customer demand for high-capacity broadband. Installation on the circuits has already been completed. Totaling 200G overall, the customer circuits will be installed along two existing fiber routes from a metropolitan center to a rural area of Missouri.

“The deployment of customer-facing 100G services shows how the growing need for high-capacity broadband is increasing as more devices require high-speed connections,” stated Michael Morey, President and CEO of Bluebird Network, following the announcement. “Bluebird Network had the foresight to upgrade our network to be 100G capable so that when the customer need arose, Bluebird could respond and deliver the service to the customer quickly.”

To read the full blog, please click here.