San Mateo Chamber of Commerce & Comcast Announce Completion of State-of-the-Art Broadband Network for Local Businesses

SAN MATEO, Calif., June 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The San Mateo Chamber of Commerce and Comcast announced today that the unprecedented project to radically upgrade the broadband network in San Mateo's downtown underground utility district has been completed.  Working closely with the City of San Mateo, the two organizations have finished the months-long endeavor which enables local businesses in the downtown area to connect to advanced telecommunications services and turbo-charged Internet speeds.

As a result, hundreds of businesses, from high-tech start-ups to medical offices, will now have access to Comcast's business-class offerings, which will be delivered over a state-of-the-art optical fiber backbone. The expansion allows for download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 10 megabits per second. Bandwidth up to 10 gigabits per second will be available for businesses with the largest data needs.

The project that many have called the "Digital Downtown" was the brainchild of The EDGE, an initiative of San Mateo's Chamber, which is committed to identifying and overcoming obstacles to economic growth in San Mateo.  After listening to the concerns of San Mateo's business community and collaborating with the City of San Mateo, EDGE leaders approached several broadband providers late in 2010 to investigate how higher-speed broadband could be brought to downtown.  Comcast was the only provider to engage the group and offer to make a major capital investment to achieve The EDGE's goal.

The completion of the public/private economic development initiative was officially announced last night at a celebration event held at Astaria Restaurant in Downtown San Mateo.  Officials toasted The EDGE and Comcast for successfully working with downtown businesses, property owners, and city government for months to ensure that the project delivered maximum benefit to downtown while minimizing any impacts to the underground utility district.

"I am very proud of the efforts by a group of passionate individuals that made this happen," said Linda Asbury, President, San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce.  "The EDGE, the Chamber, Comcast and the City worked seamlessly together to make downtown San Mateo a vibrant hub for business."

"Comcast's investment, the EDGE and Chamber of Commerce's ideas, and the cooperation of the City of San Mateo will continue to make Downtown San Mateo even more attractive to businesses of all types," said Brandt Grotte, Mayor of San Mateo.  "We are honored and proud to partner in this public/private/non-profit manner, and know that our local workplaces, not to mention the citizens of San Mateo, will all benefit from the increased data density and content richness available through these new services from Comcast."

"Comcast is ecstatic to bring our best-in-class products and services to this exciting and rapidly growing part of the City of San Mateo," said Mark O'Leary, vice president of Comcast's Business Services division in Northern California. "The San Mateo Chamber, The EDGE and the City of San Mateo were terrific partners in this complex endeavor, and its successful completion is a victory for every party involved – especially local businesses."

"It is exciting that Downtown San Mateo has taken the initiative to go digital," said Gary DeSantis, owner of San Mateo Lockworks.  "Having a preeminent fiber-optic backbone will allow traditional businesses like ours to process transactions more quickly and serve customers better, and will allow start-up internet businesses to scale up as they develop."  

About The San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce

The San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce is the voice of business on the mid-San Francisco Peninsula.  Representing hundreds of member businesses employing more than 20,000 workers, the Chamber works for a stable economy and a vital community in the San Mateo area by promoting business and the public interest through representation, advocacy and sponsorship. The Chamber organizes and funds programs that support the economic, civic, cultural and educational excellence of the San Mateo area.

About Comcast Business Services

Comcast Business Services, a unit of Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a modern, company-owned fiber network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Class Internet, TV and Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

Launched in 2011, the Comcast Business Class Ethernet suite offers high-performance point-to-point and multi-point Metro Ethernet services with the capacity to deliver cloud computing, software-as-a-service, business continuity/disaster recovery and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Comcast Metro Ethernet services are significantly faster than T1 lines and other legacy technologies, providing scalable bandwidth from 1 Mbps up to 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) in more than 20 major US markets.

For more information, call 1-800-391-3000 or visit www.business.comcast.com.

SOURCE Comcast