Shenandoah Telecom (Shentel) (Nasdaq: SHEN) has been tasked by Page County, Va. to build a middle mile fiber network to provide services to area businesses and other service providers.
Stretching from Rileyville to Shenandoah, Va., the new 39-mile network will be completed in 2012.
Bernie Miller, the chairman of Page County Broadband Authority, told the Associated Press that the contract is the first step in providing better broadband services in the county.
Although bringing the final last mile connection to the residential and business user is the goal of broadband, building middle mile networks like the Page County network is just as critical especially for smaller service providers. Prior to the build out of these middle mile networks, these service providers had little choice for their network backhaul needs than large incumbents who not only charged expensive fees to access their network.
