Any business considering relocation options has a new reason to take a long hard look at Whitley County. The county commissioners, working in tandem with Intelligent Fiber Network (IFN), have launched a new economic development initiative to make high-speed fiber networking available for businesses at a reduced cost. The effort has led to the unincorporated sectors of Whitley County – including Churubusco, Larwill, and South Whitley – to being certified as “Broadband Ready Communities” by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.
“As technology advances and school and business environments change, high-speed internet access is becoming crucial to remaining competitive,” said Kennedy St. George, Director of Marketing with Whitley County Economic Development Corporation. “Our partnership between local leadership and current providers like IFN checks an essential box for local businesses.”
One business taking advantage of the program is Reelcraft, the leading global manufacturer of hose, cord, and cable reels for commercial applications. Reelcraft is headquartered in Whitley County and has a satellite office in the UK and an additional manufacturing facility in China. With a considerable reliance on the cloud for their VOIP phone and call center, as well as a Microsoft Azure deployment for business reporting, Reelcraft was in the market for a faster and more reliable redundant circuit. IFN was the perfect fit.
Reelcraft is using a 100Mbps asynchronous fiber optic circuit for their mission-critical data connection and credits the Economic Development Corporation for making it possible. “I’m grateful to the EDC for bringing IFN into the county,” said Bob Sollazzo, Reelcraft IT Business Analyst.
“The best kind of project is one where you don’t have to babysit the details. IFN just took care of it. The project finished on schedule, and when the technicians left, everything was up and running. I haven’t had to worry about it since,” said Sollazzo.
Another company experiencing worry-free, high-speed internet access is British Columbia-based Iotron, an electron beam processing company with a second facility in Columbia City, Indiana. When Iotron was experiencing intermittent outages with their previous provider, they turned to IFN.
Jason Cornell, Iotron’s Business Improvement Director, said, “As you’d expect, business improvement is a driving mandate in my daily activities. Our processes have been historically paper-based and we’re increasingly moving them to the cloud. With that effort comes more demand on the internet connection. Our Columbia City facility became a bottleneck, so we had to make a switch.”
Cornell and his team knew they wanted the reliability and security of a fiber optic connection and began the search for a provider, ultimately deciding on IFN. “It was obvious,” Cornell said. “IFN was the best option by far.”
As for the process of working with IFN, Cornell is clear: “Super easy, very smooth. A couple of phone calls, a few emails, and Bob’s your uncle.” Which, when translated from Canadian, means the results speak for themselves.
If your business is in Whitley County and you’d like more information on their broadband access initiative, or if you’re looking to improve your network operations anywhere else in the state, give us a call at (866) 309-0963 or send us an email at: info@intelligentfiber.com