The Northwest Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG) has selected Hanover-based Ciena and its partners to build a regional fiber network known as Project THOR. Funded in part by grants from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and local government contributions, the network will connect approximately 400 miles of existing public and private fiber and has the potential to provide more than 230,000 residents access to more bandwidth at more competitive pricing.
Through Project THOR, NWCCOG is delivering lower-cost broadband access to local Internet service providers, participating state and local governments, schools, libraries and health care and public safety facilities through 10 landing points dispersed throughout the region.
The goals of Project THOR are to lower the costs of broadband access and improve the reliability of the network, which is currently prone to mass failures when a fiber line is cut. Roughly 85 percent of the needed fiber for the project is already in place, taking advantage of existing fiber networks such as those built by the Colorado Department of Transportation.
“Access to broadband networks is critical for economic development and growth. Ciena is thrilled to help NWCCOG modernize and unlock the value of networks by providing a programmable, converged, multi-service network infrastructure that can scale up while simplifying operational support,” said Kevin Sheehan, chief technology officer of the Americas, Ciena.