The Metronet: the region builds its own fiber

ORGANIZED 2004 · RENAMED CHOICELIGHT 2019 · 500 MILES BY THE OPERATOR'S CURRENT COUNT

The other half of the infrastructure story belongs to a nonprofit: in the late 1990s, while the bubble was still inflating, Project Future — the economic-development organization for South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County — concluded that the high cost and limited availability of broadband was costing the region employers, and put together a task force of the two cities, the county, the University of Notre Dame, the chamber and other interests. The task force's answer was not a provider but a pipe: a dark-fiber, vendor-neutral network that any carrier could light, run in part through the cities' own traffic-signal conduit. Seven founding subscribers prepaid ten years of fees to build it — the University of Notre Dame, Teachers Credit Union, Memorial Health System, St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, Robert Bosch Corporation, Madison Center and the South Bend Medical Foundation — more than two million dollars in all, funding the first phase and two years of operations. St. Joe Valley Metronet, Inc. was incorporated in 2004, with Project Future's Patrick McMahon, Notre Dame's Gordon Wishon and South Bend businessman Karl King as its first board; a companion company, SJVM, Inc., was formed to serve business subscribers, while the nonprofit served government and education.

The network's course runs in dated counts. Notre Dame Magazine's account of the opening describes more than 50 miles of fiber through the signal conduits, lit in 2004, with its exchange point at Kevin Smith's Union Station — the nonprofit's ring and the carrier hotel were built to meet each other — and speeds the magazine put at 6,000 times a T-1 line. By 2013 the network ran more than 100 miles with more than 150 subscribers and nineteen carriers delivering services over it, at an average of about 1,000 dollars a month for a gigabit, on the community-broadband record. In January 2014 the Marshall County Council approved the final financing of a three-million-dollar, 33-mile extension south to Plymouth, the template — public conduit, public partners, the network's own fiber money — repeated down U.S. 31. In 2019 the two corporations rebranded: St. Joe Valley Metronet became ChoiceLight, Inc., and SJVM became CLight, Inc. The operator's own current accounting puts the network at more than 500 miles of fiber and more than 250 subscribers across the region's commercial, education, medical and government centers. Of everything the internet era left in South Bend, this is the piece still owned by the region itself — a cooperative built at the bubble's height, on the deliberate theory that a small city should own the road and let the carriers compete to drive on it.

Sources:

1. ChoiceLight, Inc., "FAQs" — the operator's own history: Project Future's late-1990s task force; St. Joe Valley Metronet incorporated 2004 with McMahon, Wishon and King as the initial board; the seven founding subscribers and their prepaid funding; the conduit agreements; the 2019 rebranding to ChoiceLight and CLight; the current network at more than 500 miles and more than 250 subscribers. choicelight.org
2. Notre Dame Magazine — the Metronet's opening in 2004: more than 50 miles through public traffic-signal conduits, funded by seven large data users including Notre Dame; the exchange point at Smith's Union Station; nearly 200 local customers at the magazine's writing. (Magazine text as archived.)
3. Community Broadband Networks (Institute for Local Self-Reliance), September 13, 2013 — the 100-mile network, nineteen carriers, gigabit pricing about 1,000 dollars a month; the initial subscribers' more than two million dollars; SJVM's business-only role. communitynetworks.org
4. Broadband Communities Magazine, January 14, 2014 — the 33-mile Marshall County extension to Plymouth, its three-million-dollar financing and public shares; Metronet at more than 100 miles and more than 150 subscribers. bbcmag.com