A 2.5 million-dollar broadband Internet project for the City of Jacksonville is nearing completion. I3 broadband representatives told the Jacksonville City Council last night that barring any unforeseen circumstances, construction crews should be done with running fiber optic infrastructure by the end of September.
The city passed a Memorandum of Understanding with I3 in August of last year to lay down the $18 million worth of infrastructure in the project to bring fiber to the door in the city’s limits.
I3 Broadband General Manager Josh Bradbury says that only a few outlying projects remain in the footprint of the project: “We will have most of the main construction – most of the main construction crews are slated to be out of the area by the end of September, so the majority of the main line construction will be done soon. There are certain properties that require unique coordination, so there are some apartment buildings, commercial buildings, some of the manufactured and mobile home communities that don’t have easements like most of the streets do – those are unique ones that are being worked on currently and we are organizing those projects. Some of the Morgan County Housing Authority properties are still needing further coordination, and we are working through all of those, as well, as quickly as we can. The city facilities – obviously, we are still building fiber up to some of these buildings and we have yet to finalize that large, coordinated project.”
Bradbury says that I3 has connected approximately 7,200 addresses to their broadband network with another 578 left to go.