By Carrie Ghose – Staff reporter, Columbus Business First
Cleveland-based Everstream has started construction of a 580-mile fiber-optic network in Central Ohio as part of a $300 million broadband expansion spanning seven Midwest states.
It’s built the first 80 miles along I-270 in Columbus, one of the first two markets for the expansion financed by AMP Capital, an Australian private equity firm that acquired Everstream last year. The up to $25 million network eventually will extend to Delaware, Marysville, Newark and Grove City, and more will be added with demand.
Everstream has opened a sales and engineering office on North 5th Street in the Warehouse District north of downtown that will create more than 20 jobs.
“It will be one of our top two or three markets, because Columbus has had such explosive growth over the past decade,” CEO Brett Lindsey said.
“The competitive landscape across the Midwest is such we can do well in any Midwest markets we identify,” he said. “Columbus is one that’s near and dear to Cleveland. … We want to continue to grow jobs in Ohio.”
In practical terms, Central Ohio gets teed up first because one of the big-three cellular carriers signed a lease on the network to increase bandwidth to towers that will be the backbone of future 5G service. The next step is side connections to thousands of smaller antennae that make 5G possible.
“This is an anchor tenant for a greenfield build,” Lindsey said. “We’re looking at a multi-year return on investment.”
The 100-gigabyte high-speed network will have capacity for several corporate clients. The network links to three large Central Ohio data centers: Cologix in north Columbus and Expedient locations in Upper Arlington and Dublin.
“The bandwidth consumption in Columbus is growing very significantly so there’s plenty of need in the market,” Lindsey said.
Existing clients, for example, keep increasing usage by 25% yearly, and new businesses need broadband for cloud computing and other digital transformations, he said.
Through the $300 million investment to add 6,000 miles to its 10,000-mile network, Everstream also is adding to existing networks in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, and expanding to Wisconsin, Missouri and Kentucky.
It sets itself apart from other broadband networks that typically have myriad other services.
“Our customers are looking for someone myopically focused on their network needs,” Lindsey said.
Everstream formed in 2014 after conversion to a for-profit company from a nonprofit that built northeast Ohio broadband networks under a $100 million grant to connect community institutions such as hospitals, schools and government facilities.