Design Nine in the News

The City of Palm Coast's FiberNet open access network continues to attract additional service providers and business users, and the project expects to be in the black in at the end of its first year of operation.
The City of Kansas City, Missouri has hired Design Nine to provide a broadband feasibility study to identify potential City investments in broadband infrastructure, identify prospective private sector partners, recommend a network architecture, and prepare a series of financial pro formas and a draft business plan.
Amelia County, Virginia selected Design Nine for an early phase broadband planning and feasibility study designed to help direct targeted investments in fiber and wireless in the county.
Design Nine was selected by the Rockbridge Area Network Authority (RANA) to provide project management, network design, network engineering, construction oversight, network testing, and operations/management design for the ARRA-funded RANA network. The effort includes 138 miles of fiber, expanded DSL services in parts of Rockbridge county that are still on dial-up, and a major colocation and data center.
New Hampshire FastRoads has received ARRA stimulus funds for a combined middle mile and last mile fiber network that will connect 22 towns in rural New Hampshire. Design Nine provided the broadband planning, network architecture design, financial planning, and grant writing that helped FastRoads win the funding.
Design Nine was selected by the state of New Mexico to assist with the state's broadband planning efforts. Design Nine will provide GIS and mapping data, work with service providers across the state, and make recommendations on broadband adoption strategies.
Design Nine recently completed (spring, 2010) a broadband planning and network design study for the Town of Stuart, Virginia. Design Nine's work included a full fiber build out cost estimate and estimates for deploying fiber in the downtown business area of Stuart.
Design Nine was selected by The Wired Road regional fiber network to provide project management, construction management, and network design services for a USDA-funded rural fiber to the home (FTTH) network build out. The work also includes providing similar services for fiber network design and build outs in the region's business parks and downtown areas.
Design Nine was selected in late spring (2010) by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to provide broadband planning services for Wired West, which is a 47 town community broadband initiative in western Massachusetts. Design Nine will perform a broadband needs assessment, develop business and financial plans for the effort, recommend a network design, and help the Wired West community group move forward.
Broadband Properties has published an article (May/June 2010) on open access networks and broadband planning by Design Nine's President, Dr. Andrew Cohill. Broadband for America: The Third Way is available as a PDF here.
Design Nine has been named one of the Top 100 Broadband Firms for 2010 by Broadband Properties magazine.
The City of Palm Coast, Florida has rolled out FiberNET. Palm Coast FiberNET is a fiber-based carrier class, commercial grade open access network. The City of Palm Coast hired Design Nine to develop the business case for making City-owned fiber available to businesses, and Design Nine designed the network architecture, assisted with vendor selection, and assisted with testing and operations design.
The nDanville open access fiber network has won the Intelligent Community Forum's Smart 21 award for 2010.
Design Nine has been named one of the Top 100 Broadband Firms for 2009 by Broadband Properties magazine.
Design Nine has been chosen by the State of New Mexico to coordinate and manage planning for broadband stimulus funding in the state, and to develop a four year strategic broadband plan for New Mexico.
The Wired Road held its official ribbon cutting in April (2009). Design Nine provided all of the planning and project management for the effort. The Wired Road is the first fully integrated fiber and wireless open access, open services municipal broadband network in the United States.
Design Nine has been named by Broadband Properties magazine as one of the top 100 broadband firms in the United States for 2008.
Design Nine was chosen by the State of New Mexico to prepare recommendations and strategies for open fiber and to improve options and choices for broadband services in both major cities and rural communities. That report has been completed on time and within budget.
Richard Lowenberg, a pioneer in the community use of broadband infrastructure, has joined the Design Nine team. Richard was responsible for some of the earliest community Internet projects, including the Telluride network in the eighties and the very successful Davis Community Network in northern California.
nDanville, a community fiber project in Danville, Virginia, become operational in December, 2007 and has now marked a full year of operations. nDanville is the first open access, open services community network in the United States. Design Nine has provided project planning, financial analysis, vendor evaluation and selection, and needs assessment for the effort.
Design Nine has been selected to provide project management for The Wired Road, an integrated fiber and wireless community broadband project in southwest Virginia. The multi-government consortium of the City of Galax, Carroll County, and Grayson County is building an open access, multi-service network. Design Nine provided the initial planning and project recommendations, and is responsible for getting the network built and developing an operations plan for the network.
Design Nine has been selected by the Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority to provide project planning for the two county regional fiber project on the shore. A sixty mile fiber backbone connecting Accomack and Northampton county with Maryland to the north and Norfolk to the south will provide a robust core network that will be expanded to provide fiber services to towns in both rural counties. Design Nine is providing financial planning, business model analysis and planning, and network architecture design services.
Design Nine was selected by the Appalachian Council of Governments to perform a three county broadband planning and feasibility study in northwestern South Carolina.
Design Nine was selected by the Town of West Point, Virginia to begin "phase two" planning and cost estimates for an open access, open services network in the community.

Design Nine in the News

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