Access to state-of-the-art; high-speed Internet connectivity has become critical to business success and a routine requirement when businesses choose locations for expansion. The trend in Internet usage is to transmit increasingly large data files, pushing the demand for additional bandwidth. Fiber optics offers the greatest bandwidth available, enabling vast amounts of information to be transmitted within seconds.

The Northern Illinois Technology Triangle (NITT) is a high speed, large capacity fiber-optic network that, when completed in mid 2008, will form a triangle whose perimeter is 175 miles long. Existing dark (unused) fiber has been leased to make up the northern and southern legs of the NITT. Because there was no existing fiber to complete the western leg of this triangle, 30 miles of new cable had to be installed. Building this section was critical, as it would complete the loop that is essential to provide the redundancy of service that assures reliability for the entire network. The Illinois Department of Transportation also had a need to construct fiber along the same section and agreed to complete this fiber build by November 2007, allowing the NITT access to the dark fiber needed to complete the triangle. In addition, the City of Rochelle is constructing a multi million-dollar technology center to distribute NITT services locally and long the I-39 corridor.

The NITT is committed to bring high-speed Internet and data services to the rural and under served communities of northern Illinois. This network opens the opportunity to bring data and Internet services, which in the past have only been available to larger metropolitan areas, to rural small communities of northern Illinois. Although the backbone of this network was built with local government funding the NITT will be using State of Illinois grants and other funding options to distribute these services to as many areas as possible.

Though the NITT will generate enormous economic benefits for the northern Illinois economy, its greatest benefit may be to serve as a model of how a regional high-speed fiber optics network can be created and the power it has to sustain and transform rural areas. One of the most disturbing trends in recent U.S. history has been the concentration of population in metropolitan areas and the corresponding de-population of rural areas. Fiber optics has the power to reverse that trend by giving rural areas instant access to the nation and the world.

Bold initiatives are needed to secure a bright future for all of Illinois.

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