Northeastern ITS to Provide 10 Gigabit per Second Service to Franklin, Pa.

RIDGELAND, Miss., April 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Spread Networks, through its subsidiary, Northeastern ITS, a carrier-neutral provider of high bandwidth, "long-haul" and "middle mile" data transport services, will be providing a 10 gigabit per second connection to a cooperative partnership formed in Pennsylvania, consisting of the City of Franklin, Venango County and the Franklin Industrial and Commercial Authority (FICDA), in an effort to support broadband deployment and economic development in this mostly-rural setting.  The City of Franklin, a picturesque and historic town, is located approximately halfway between Erie and Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. 

This new service, delivered across Spread Networks' industry-leading Chicago to New York fiber backbone, will provide this group and its regional carrier partners with a direct, high-bandwidth connection to the Digital Realty Trust carrier hotel in downtown Chicago, one of the preeminent carrier hotels and Internet gateways in North America.

The local Franklin group is presently converting approximately 2,000 square feet of vacant space located in the Franklin Professional Building at 150 Prospect Avenue, Franklin, to serve as an access node to this network.  The partnership will be able to offer collocation facilities to several different carriers, as well as off-site data storage and cloud computing services to various businesses at this site.  It is also the goal of the project's champions to position the local area for possible data center investment. 

Once the connection to this network is complete, super high-speed Internet access will be offered to the tenants at 150 Prospect Avenue.  Later, along with its carrier partners, the partnership hopes to offer similar high-speed Internet service to local businesses and residents of the surrounding rural communities.

"This is a truly unique opportunity, not only for Franklin, but for our entire Venango County community," said E. William Gabrys, Franklin City Manager.  "With this connection and the access to high speed Internet service it affords, we can now begin the process of erasing the digital divide in our community." 

Provisioning of the interconnection and site construction is currently underway, with service expected to be turned up during the Third Quarter of 2012.

About Northeastern ITS

Northeastern ITS is a carrier-neutral provider of very high bandwidth, "long-haul" data transport services to cable, telephone, internet service providers and other enterprise customers (such as businesses, hospitals, schools and universities).

About Spread Networks

Spread Networks, a privately owned telecommunications provider, built a new fiber network from the ground up, connecting New York and Chicago to set a new standard for latency. Without the drag of traditional telecommunications offerings, Spread Networks provides its customers with a state-of-the-art diverse and secure fiber optic network to allow data to run as close as possible to the true speed of light through fiber.

http://www.spreadnetworks.com/

Contact: Sharron Silvers, +1-212-896-1282, [email protected]

SOURCE Spread Networks