Smithville, Indiana's largest privately held telecommunications company, today announced the completion of the first segment of a more than $100 million Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) overbuild for all of its residential customers in Indiana. This cutting-edge technology will allow Smithville's customers access to some of the fastest broadband speeds available anywhere in the U.S., including a mammoth 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) package. Currently, no other internet service provider (ISP) in the state of Indiana offers 100 mbps service for residential customers. In fact, no other ISP in the entire state offer's more than 50 Mbps

ELLETTSVILLE, Ind. -- Rural communities everywhere have rarely been first to receive new technology upgrades of any kind. Many of Indiana’s rural communities are no different, struggling today to upgrade to a broadband system that can support sustained economic development and a higher quality of life. Smithville, Indiana’s largest privately held telecommunications company, has set out to change that and today announced the completion of the first segment of a more than $100 million Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) overbuild for all of its residential customers in Indiana.

By bringing fiber optic cable directly to each home, customers will receive Internet, voice and TV at the speed of light. This cutting-edge technology will allow Smithville’s customers access to the fastest broadband speeds available anywhere in the U.S., including a mammoth 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) package. Currently, no other internet service provider (ISP) in the state of Indiana offers 100 mbps service for residential customers. In fact, no other ISP in the state offer’s more than 50 Mbps.

According to Joe Savage, President of the National Fiber-to-the-Home Council, “Smithville’s investment in a fiber-to-the-home network will pay dividends for their subscribers, not only in improved access to the Internet, but in increased tele-work and home-based business opportunities, as well as increased tele-education and tele-health application usage. We applaud the forward-looking efforts of Smithville to bring true high-speed communications to their customers.”

Called Fiber-to-the-Home, Smithville’s all-new technology platform will give customers the ability to access the Internet, voice, and television and web based television services at a speed much faster than currently available to most residential customers anywhere in the United States—in rural or urban areas.

“Smithville’s $90 million investment and commitment to bringing cutting-edge technology to rural Indiana will not only impact their customers directly, but will help to advance the economy of the region as a whole,” said Lt. Governor Becky Skillman. “Smithville’s efforts to bring true high-speed broadband to these communities will help them become more competitive in the 21st Century economy and advance technology in rural Indiana.”

“As technology advances and becomes more integrated into everyday life, the bandwidth available via fiber directly to the home will become essential for all residential customers,” said Smithville President and CEO Darby McCarty. “We’re looking to the future and acting now, as opposed to acting later, and bringing technology to rural Indiana that can’t be found in most large cities.”

Smithville’s new FTTH service will set a new standard of digital communication with the complete rebuild of its existing system. When complete, none of Smithville’s customers will use existing copper or hybrid (combination of copper, fiber or coaxial cable) systems which possess significant limitations and cannot achieve the higher speeds available only with all-fiber systems.

So how fast is Smithville’s new fiber-to-the-home platform? For example: A movie purchased and downloaded on a DSL connection might take as long as two or three hours to complete. The time required to download that same movie might be cut in half with a cable modem. But with Smithville’s fiber-based connection, the same movie could be downloaded in seconds.

Within the next 12 months Smithville will have half of its residential customers using the new fiber-to-the-home service. For more information about Smithville’s 100 Mbps service offering, other products or other information about the company, visit www.smithville.net.

About Smithville – Led by chairman and CEO Darby A. McCarty since 2003, Smithville is one of Indiana’s oldest and largest independent communication companies, with its telephone division founded in 1922. A long-time champion of southern Indiana customers and a proven early adopter of state-of-the-art communication services, Smithville began converting its operations to a digital platform in the 1980s. In 2003, the company created a new commercial division, Smithville Digital, which serves up a fiber-based technology portfolio of physical and electronic services providing high-speed, reliable and secure broadband access and industrial data transport for Hoosier businesses statewide. For more information, please visit www.smithville.net.