The Metronet — the city's own fiber

2004 – TODAY

Built by the institutions, from 2004: The study that started it came from Project Future, the region's economic-development body, and its finding was that the South Bend area was starved of bandwidth — expensive, thin, and owned elsewhere. The answer the city's institutions built is one of the few of its kind in the country: the St. Joe Valley Metronet, formed in 2004 as a nonprofit whose founding capital contributors put in over $2 million for ten years' access — the University of Notre Dame, Memorial Health Systems, St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, the South Bend Medical Foundation, the teachers' credit union now called Everwise, Robert Bosch Corp., and Madison Center. Construction began in 2006, on the account of the woman who now leads the organization. The network the nonprofit built is open-access dark fiber — some 100 miles of it around the city — lit by its users rather than sold as service: the nonprofit serves government and education, and its for-profit arm serves business, the two meeting the national networks at the Union Station carrier hotel of the entry above. Mishawaka opened its own city fiber to businesses under Metronet management in October 2012; the Marshall County extension — 33 miles to Plymouth, $3 million — won its final financing in January 2014.

ChoiceLight, and what the network reaches now: The organization operates today as ChoiceLight, Inc.; the sources reached for this section do not date the change of name, and the gap is named rather than bridged. From 1 January 2023 ChoiceLight also manages Elkhart County's 189-mile network, bringing the open-access network under its management to more than 500 miles across three counties and a half-million people, with some 300 dark-fiber end users, on the Fiber Broadband Association's 2024 account of its own president's presentation. A regional magazine's claim that "in 2005, South Bend became the first city to install optical fiber in an underground network" is printed here as the magazine's claim and no more — the documented record of this section begins with the formation of 2004 and the construction of 2006, and needs no first. Two threads close the entry. The fiber Innovation Park sold to its tenants was this network — the parks and the ring were one strategy. And the ring's westward build, through ChoiceLight's documented work toward New Carlisle, ties the city's network to the ground of the next entry: the largest technology investment in Indiana history, announced for the county this fiber serves.

Sources:

1. St. Joe Valley Metronet / ChoiceLight, Inc., organizational record — the Project Future bandwidth study; the nonprofit formed 2004; founding capital contributors over $2 million for ten years' access (Notre Dame, Memorial Health Systems, St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, the South Bend Medical Foundation, Teachers Credit Union/Everwise, Robert Bosch Corp., Madison Center); the ~100 miles of open-access dark fiber; the nonprofit and for-profit arms; the Union Station interconnection; the Mishawaka opening (October 2012) and the Marshall County extension (33 miles, $3 million, financing January 2014).
2. Regina Emberton, ChoiceLight CEO, Fiber Broadband Association (May 2024) — construction begun 2006; about 300 dark-fiber end users; the three-county, half-million-person region.
3. ChoiceLight, Inc., release of 15 February 2023 — the management of Elkhart County's 189-mile network from 1 January 2023; over 500 miles of open-access network under management.