SANTA MARIA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wave Broadband, a gigabit broadband and fiber services company, announced today that it has signed an agreement with the City of Santa Maria to complete construction of the City’s fiber-optic network ring to bring reliable, high-speed gigabit service to City departments, businesses, schools, and residents as a whole. The project is designed to spark substantial economic growth in and around the city as businesses and public services take advantage of the multi-million dollar public/private investment into the community.
The fiber ring, which links key components of the City’s infrastructure, is a priority for Santa Maria to attract new tech companies and employees who are choosing where to locate based on the availability of connectivity and high-speed internet service. With the exponential growth of internet traffic, the city sees this project as essential to the community’s economic expansion.
Increasing numbers of municipalities, frustrated by lackluster service from entrenched providers and handcuffed by budget constraints, are turning to public/private partnerships to upgrade their communities’ internet infrastructure.
The completion of the fiber ring will allow Santa Maria to upgrade the City’s public safety network, become a regional emergency dispatch center, and future-proof the city. It will also allow the city to offer public Wi-Fi in its revitalizing downtown core, and for Wave to evaluate providing Wi-Fi in residential neighborhoods where traditional carriers have been slow to upgrade internet service.
“The city’s leadership and overall support were key in our decision to make the investment in Santa Maria,” explained Paul Koss, Senior Vice President of Business Solutions with Wave. “We have developed a great long-term partnership that will support the city’s goals of driving economic growth and becoming a regional technology hub.”
“The success of this project is a result of our strong partnership,” said Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino. “Wave has the expertise and understands the complexities of the various projects that will tie our fiber system together and meet our connectivity goals, so that Santa Maria will become a Smart City-Safe City, the first truly gigabit City on the Central Coast.”
ABOUT WAVE BROADBAND:
Wave is a leading provider of fiber and broadband services on the West Coast. Wave delivers a range of connectivity solutions for cities, government agencies, and businesses, including custom fiber networks, high-capacity Internet access, data transport, phone services, and dark fiber to meet the specific bandwidth needs of our customers along the West Coast. Wave recently merged with RCN and Grande to become the 6th largest internet and broadband services provider in the U.S. For more information about Wave, visit http://wavebusiness.com.
ABOUT SANTA MARIA:
The business-friendly, award-winning, “All America City” of Santa Maria is home to many companies and more than 106,000 residents who enjoy this slice of California’s beautiful Central Coast. Businesses in need of more space, customers, a moderate cost of living, and state-of-the-art technology find it all in Santa Maria. The City has a diverse economy based on a healthy combination of commercial and manufacturing development, agriculture, education, health care, retail trade, tourism, oil production, the local public airport, and nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base. Agriculture remains a major industry with many sophisticated infrastructure expansions such as advanced hydroponic greenhouses and large produce coolers.
