Cleveland.com Article - Feb 21, 2013

**FEATURED ARTICLE**

Time Warner's Fiber Optic Expansion Initiative has already netted Strongsville gains

Cleveland.com - Feb 21, 2013
http://www.cleveland.com/strongsville/index.ssf/2013/02/time_warners_fiber_optic_expan.html

Thanks to a public-private partnership with Time Warner Cable, the city’s business and technology park will be a lot more attractive to businesses.

The cable company will be bringing high-speed, fiber-optic communications systems, including phones, cable and internet, to the city’s four business parks. And they’re doing it all for free.

The cable company won’t cite how much the project is costing them, but Strongsville Economic Development Director Brent Painter said it would have cost the city more than $1 million to do the work.

“This is a really big deal for our businesses,” he said.

And it’s already starting to pay off.

Painter said two companies have announced moves into the park, off Foltz Industrial Parkway.

“(The fiber-optic project) played a major role in bringing in Foundation Softwareand IMARC,” Painter said.

And it also helped net the city a $215,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation to help extend Foltz Parkway to Boston Road, opening up hundreds of acres of land for future development.

Travis Reynolds, Time Warner’s media relations manager for the Cleveland/Akron area, said the Fiber Optic Expansion Initiative is part of a multi-million dollar drive by the cable company’s business service, Time Warner Cable Business Class, to extend its services to businesses nationwide.

“Historically, the business community has been under-served for business-grade, innovative telecommunications services,” Reynolds said in an email.

Painter said the same was true in Strongsville.

“There were parts of our business parks where you could get a faster connection in a residential neighborhood than at a business,” Painter said. “So it was frustrating to our business, and to us in the city, as well.”

The new fiber-optic cables, which are glass cables about the diameter of human hair that are able to transmit infrared light rays across long distances at an extremely high rate of speed – up to 10 gigabytes per second, Reynolds said.

“Through the hard work, dedication and commitment of our local and Regional teams, this expansion initiative results in more choices, innovation and efficiency in business operations for businesses of all sizes,” Reynolds said.

Construction on the project, which is ongoing, began last fall, and the company is expected to announce more details about the plan at the Feb. 21 Business Network Breakfast.