The City of Springboro is a recipient of the Smart 50 Award, honoring the 50 most transformative smart city projects in the world. Each year, Smart 50 Awards - in partnership with Smart Cities Connect and Smart Cities Connect Foundation - recognize global smart cities’ projects, honoring the most innovative and influential work. Springboro’s Fiber to the Home Plan, which includes joining with six local cities to build a fiber loop, building a 17-mile fiber optic network infrastructure within the City and selling conduits to two private Internet Service Providers, was selected as a top project from submissions across the globe. Awards will be presented in May.
“We are honored to have the Fiber to Home project selected as a Smart 50 Award recipient,” says City Manager Chris Pozzuto. “Connectivity for home, schools and businesses is a necessity in today’s world. Like most improvements, this project required construction and patience. We appreciate our residents’ understanding as the infrastructure continues to be installed. Now our residents and businesses have the opportunity to choose from three internet service providers, at a competitive cost that works for their individual budgets.”
The City of Springboro had already determined that offering universal broadband called for open access fiber infrastructure to nearly every major street intersection with an aggregation point in every neighborhood throughout the community, and soon thereafter, initiated the fiber construction project. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought stay at home orders and a new focus to the meaning of communication and connectivity. With only one internet service provider for the community, the lack of fiber infrastructure and internet service choices became more apparent to the City. Partnering with Point Broadband and altafiber to expand the availability of broadband service to homes and businesses, this project increases resident choices from one to three. After purchasing conduits from the City, each ISP ran its own fiber optic cables to provide high speed internet to every home and business in the City. In addition, the technology upgrade allows the City to provide better safety, communication and public works services. The project will also soon provide free Wi-Fi to City parks and buildings along with other indoor/outdoor spaces for public use.
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