How did we get here?
In early 2014, a local business approached the City about its need for a larger facility to meet its current and future expansion plans. Increasing the size of its existing facility was not a viable option and so new sites were explored. During the search it became clear that the biggest impediment to keeping the company in Valparaiso was not the availability of suitable land—it was the lack of diverse fiber connectivity options. As solutions were explored, the City began looking at the fiber issue more holistically. To that end, the City spent 15 months engaging local businesses to investigate whether others were experiencing similar challenges. The findings were publicly shared with both the City Council and Redevelopment Commission in August of 2015:
- access to dark fiber in Valparaiso was extremely restricted to only a few buildings through current vendors;
- connecting fiber to several commercial areas in Valparaiso was logistically impossible if done independent of each other and was too cost prohibitive for a single entity to bear;
- high speed access to upstream providers was controlled by ISP Monopolies;
- there was a need in our community school system for fiber connectivity to the various school buildings and other educational facilities;
- the costs of broadband-based services in Valparaiso were much higher than in other parts of our region; and,
- there were almost no options for redundant service.
From these conclusions, ValpoNetTM was conceived. For a growing and vibrant community, ample and cost effective fiber connectivity is no different than snowplowing roads, constructing sewer lines and providing fire protection—it is a public infrastructure necessity.