Smithville™

Smithville to Invest $90 Million for Rural Technology

Post date: April 7, 2008 Print

ELLETTSVILLE, Indiana Rural communities have rarely been first on the list to receive technology upgrades of any kind. Indiana’s rural communities are no different, struggling today to upgrade to a broadband system that can support sustained economic development and a higher quality of life. According to Darby A. McCarty, president and CEO of Smithville, rural residents and businesses in certain areas of Indiana can soon boast about a new development that is not yet widely available, even in urban settings. This region in central, south central and southern Indiana is about to receive data, voice and video at the speed of light through cutting-edge technology that brings fiber-optic broadband directly into the home.

Smithville, Indiana’s oldest and largest privately held telecommunications company will invest $90 million over the next 48 months to build phase one of an entirely new communications platform that will bring real fiber-based broadband to 29,000 customers in 17 counties in the central, south central and southern part of the state, including Hendricks County in the greater Indianapolis area.

“Smithville’s $90 million investment and commitment to bringing cutting-edge technology to rural Indiana will not only impact their customers directly, but help to advance the economy of the region as a whole,” said Lt. Governor Becky Skillman. “Smithville’s efforts to bring true high-speed broadband to these communities will help them become more competitive in the 21st Century economy and advance technology in rural Indiana.”

“As a native of southern Indiana, I know firsthand what this means to the region,” the Lt. Governor continued. “We are proud to have a Hoosier-owned company directly helping Hoosiers in rural areas.”

Called Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH), Smithville’s all-new technology platform will give customers the ability to access the Internet, telecom, and eventually video services at a speed much faster than currently available to most residential customers anywhere—rural, urban, big telecom, or small telecom. Using light waves to carry digital signals, Smithville’s new FTTH system will transmit data approaching the speed of light—about 186,000 miles per second—with upload and download speeds averaging faster than 100 mbps.

“The new Smithville fiber-optic system will bring a whole host of new services to our customers, but as important, it will help Indiana rural business compete on a global scale,” said Ms. McCarty. “From bandwidth-hungry modeling software to large creative art files, the new Smithville fiber system will be able to handle the Hoosier workload from a rural setting.”

Smithville’s new FTTH service will set a new standard of digital communication with the complete rebuild of its existing system. When complete, none of Smithville’s customers will use existing copper or hybrid (copper, fiber or coaxial cable) systems which possess significant limitations and cannot achieve the higher speeds available only with fiber-based systems.

“Bringing fiber-based high-speed connectivity to Hoosiers living and working in rural areas is critical for Indiana’s long-term success,” said James L. Jay, president and CEO of TechPoint, Indiana’s initiative focused on growth of the state’s technology sector.  “This is another positive development for Indiana’s rural technology infrastructure and will most certainly aid economic development. Our collective hats are off to Smithville for continuing to invest in Indiana.”

Smithville will acquire funding for a portion of the $90 million fiber rebuild through a federal loan program from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Rural Utilities Services (RUS) Division of USDA has provided long-term loans to a number of communications companies upgrading services to rural areas, including major rural areas in the southeast United States.

“The USDA has long had programs in place to advance rural development, but to be effective, they require an innovative and risk-taking company to help execute them,” said Robert White, Indiana state director for the United States Department of Agriculture. “Smithville represents a perfect example of a company bringing much needed state-of-the-art service to rural customers by leveraging USDA financial resources. Smithville’s $90 million investment can bring real economic development and advancement to southern Indiana through their vision.”

So how fast is Smithville’s new fiber-to-the-home platform? For example: A movie purchased and downloaded on a DSL connection might take as long as two or three hours to complete. The time required to download that same movie might be cut in half with a cable modem. But with Smithville’s fiber-based connection, the same movie could be downloaded in seconds.

Smithville plans to roll out a whole new suite of services with its rebuild, including extended data and consumer video packages.

About Smithville - Led by chairman and CEO Darby A. McCarty since 2003, Smithville is one of Indiana’s oldest and largest independent communication companies, with its telephone division founded in 1922. A long-time champion of southern Indiana customers and a proven early adopter of state-of-the-art communication services, Smithville began converting its operations to a digital platform in the 1980s. In 2003, the company created a new commercial division, Smithville Digital, which serves up a fiber-based technology portfolio of physical and electronic services providing high-speed, reliable and secure broadband access and industrial data transport for Hoosier businesses statewide.