St. Louis groups partner to pursue ultrafast gigabit Internet service
From Illinois Business Journal news services
ST. LOUIS — With a rapidly growing technology corridor, Downtown STL, Inc., the city of St. Louis, St. Louis Development Corporation and St. Louis Economic Development Partnership have released a gigabit fiber Request for Information to upgrade and expand the regional broadband infrastructure and improve access to an affordable high-speed Internet with speeds more than 1,000 megabits per second.
Such an expansion, they say, will increase speeds to an estimated 20 times faster than current averages for residents and businesses across St. Louis.
“Becoming a gigabit community will better help us continue supporting innovation and economic development from the heart of our region,” said St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay.
The St. Louis region is a growing destination for technology-focused innovators and entrepreneurs. One of the key infrastructure ingredients for sustaining and accelerating the growth of this innovation ecosystem is availability of modern fiber-optic network and access to affordable, ultra-fast broadband Internet.
The RFI is intended to outline the market opportunity and invite interested vendors to submit ideas for delivering this service in St. Louis in order to develop a widely offered, easily accessible, affordable, highly reliable and fast broadband Internet.
The process is one of many steps that the RFI issuers are taking to help develop a digital network infrastructure that addresses the current and future connectivity needs of established businesses, startups, and residents throughout St. Louis.
“We’ve had immense growth in St. Louis’s innovation clusters in downtown, Cortex, along with Cherokee, and Mid-town Alley,” said Missy Kelley, president of Downtown STL. “The RFI will allow us to identify potential business models and partnerships to deliver gigabit Internet services across all neighborhoods and communities of St. Louis.”
The issuers of the RFI said they recognize the significance of ultra-fast broadband for the success of residents and businesses and are committed to making the critical investments and policy modifications required to ensure that St. Louis has widely available service.
Further details about the RFI, including copy of the RFI, are available at www.downtownstl.org/RFI
