NOVEMBER 29, 2010 -- Maine Fiber Company Inc. has selected nextGen Telecom Services Group Inc. as the prime network infrastructure construction contractor for the Three Ring Binder project. The project is an 1,100-mile, fiber-optic network spanning 100 Maine communities, encompassing 110,000 households, 600 schools, libraries, and other anchor community institutions, and 38 government facilities. NextGen has also been selected by Maine Fiber Company Inc. to provide on-going maintenance and emergency restoration services.
Maine Fiber Company was formed to manage the construction, maintenance, and leasing of the Three Ring Binder network that is being built using a combination of federal grant money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and private investment. Maine Fiber Company provides access to its network to all qualified users on an open-access, non-discriminatory basis. Any carrier or other organization requiring fiber-optic facilities may lease network capacity to provide services to business and consumer end users within these communities.
“NextGen brings deep experience in Maine to the project in terms of building fiber-optic networks for service providers, wind farms, smart grids, businesses and other customers – particularly in rural areas,” says Joshua Broder, general manager of Maine Fiber Company Inc.
NextGen has begun work on the project and expects to complete the construction phase in two years. The company currently operates from its primary facility in Gardiner, Maine, and anticipates expanding to multiple other staging and warehouse facilities in strategic locations throughout the State during construction. NextGen also expects to ramp up its Maine workforce of line foremen, linemen, laborers, traffic control flaggers, and warehouse personnel throughout the duration of the construction phase of the project.
