The city of Cortez and OFS, a manufacturer and supplier of fiber optic network products, announced today that phase one of the city’s fiber network went live in the past few days.
The network – named the Fiber to Home Network – will serve Cortez businesses, increasing the bandwidth for commerce, communications and data.
The Southwest Colorado Council of Governments obtained the initial funding for the project, which came from a state grant of $1 million from oil, gas and coal leasing rights.
The city of Cortez provided the 25 percent match for the grant funds.
The city said the funds are being funneled back into developing the economy and growth of Cortez by offering potential large employers or data center providers the bandwidth and technology needed to grow their businesses.
“The open access model means that Cortez will not be providing the services to end users, but instead partnering with area service providers who will use the system to bring high capacity services to the businesses and enterprises that request the service,” said Rick Smith, Cortez general services director.
John George, OFS’ director of systems and applications, said that at the request of Cortez, the installation of the fiber was through underground conduits into OFS’ Orbital fiber distribution cabinets and to businesses covered in phase one.
“Future phases of the project are planned to expand the network of service areas outside the first phase business area with additional fiber rings and distribution cabinets covering the city,” said George.
OFS is designer, manufacturer and provider of optical fiber and optical fiber cable. OFS is owned by Furukawa Electric.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
