Kirkland, Washington, March 31, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ziply™ Fiber today announced plans to upgrade its existing copper networks in Wenatchee, Washington, as well as Osburn and St. Maries, Idaho, to its new, ultra-high-speed, 100 percent fiber-optic network later this year. When complete, thousands of residents and businesses in and around these cities will have access to Ziply Fiber’s popular “Gig-speed,” or Gigabit fiber connectivity, and its industry leading 5-gig and 2-gig for residential services, the fastest connections available anywhere in the Northwest.
Since the summer of 2020, Ziply Fiber has been aggressively expanding its fiber network across its existing service area in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, with more than 60 fiber build projects completed or currently underway. In recent weeks, the company launched fiber-optic services after upgrading its network in Mukilteo, Oakesdale, Sultan and Woodland, Washington, as well as Blanchard, Bonners Ferry and Potlatch, Idaho. The company expects to announce more than a dozen additional cities for fiber upgrades in the coming months.
“Over the past several months, we’ve been busy enhancing and expanding our existing network to deliver the capacity, redundancy and resiliency these growing communities require. Our state-of-the-art fiber optic network will improve our existing customers’ experience and offer more choice of providers for the people and businesses who call these wonderful cities home,” said Harold Zeitz, CEO of Ziply Fiber.
Ziply Fiber already has invested more than $30 million in upgrading its intermarket fiber backbone in Central and Eastern Washington and into Western Idaho. That work has enabled the company to bring high-capacity, 100G and 400G connections to and through much of the region, connecting into several downtown cores, making the eventual fiber-to-the-premises projects easier and faster when they begin.
“The work we’ve done to add additional backbone routes and improve redundancy is especially important due to the high fire danger in this region,” added Zeitz. “With multiple routes in and out of these cities, we are better equipped to keep residents and businesses online.”
Ziply Fiber’s announcement comes at a time when more and more families and businesses need high-capacity internet to support the online needs of daily life in today’s world. Ziply Fiber's blazingly fast service requires no annual contracts or any data caps for residential users.
Following final network design and permitting later this year, residents will see trucks and crews begin to run fiber aerially between telephone poles and underground in some areas. The network construction will take several months to complete and will include the installation of network equipment in local, existing Central Offices, including those buildings in and near Wenatchee, Osburn and St. Maries used by local employees, that will house the infrastructure needed to run and manage the network in each city.
Ziply Fiber is committed to thorough clean-up and repair of grounds following fiber construction. If residents notice something has been missed the company wants to know about it and asks that details be shared at https://ziplyfiber.com/constructioncleanup.
The fiber upgrade is part of Ziply Fiber’s commitment to invest more than $500 million to build an advanced, 100-percent fiber network to both suburban and rural communities across the Northwest that have been underserved when it comes to internet access. The company has been actively building fiber across the Northwest since June 2020 and has plans to build and deploy new fiber-optic cables, local hubs, new offices, and new hardware to run the network as part of hundreds of additional projects across its 250,000-square-mile footprint.
Ziply Fiber’s primary service offerings are Fiber Internet and phone for residential customers; Business Fiber Internet and Ziply Voice services for small businesses; and a variety of Internet, networking, and voice solutions for enterprise customers. The company will continue to support Ziply Internet (DSL) customers, and its TV customers in Washington and Oregon. A full listing of products and services can be found at ziplyfiber.com.
Ziply Fiber is local in the Northwest, headquartered in Kirkland, Washington, and has major offices in Everett, Washington; Beaverton, Oregon; and Hayden, Idaho. Most of Ziply Fiber’s executive team, which consists of former executives from AT&T, CenturyLink, and Wave Broadband, either grew up in the Northwest or have spent the better part of 30 years living here. That local ownership and market familiarity is an important part of the company mindset and culture.
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