Local officials met Tuesday afternoon at Southwestern Michigan College with representatives of Merit Network, which is building a 2,287-mile fiber-optic network extension through Michigan.

Last January, Merit and its project sub-recipients were awarded federal stimulus funding for two state broadband projects.

The Rural, Education, Anchor, Community and Health care — Michigan Middle Mile Collaborative (REACH-3MC) is a collaboration that will build much-needed infrastructure in many parts of the state, including across the southern tier of counties through Cass.

REACH-3MC and sub-recipients received a $33.3 million federal grant from funds allocated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 to create a 1,017-mile, open-access network in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.

Seven months later, in August, Merit and its REACH-3MC II project sub-recipients were awarded funding to build 1,270 miles of fiber-optic infrastructure in the northern Lower and Upper Peninsulas to connect to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Both projects are funded through a program of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

The 175-mile Southern Corridor runs from Berrien Springs to Monroe via Hillsdale.

Those attending included City Manager Kevin Anderson, Information Systems Coordinator Mitch Billingham of the City of Dowagiac, Technology Director Randy Gross of Dowagiac Union Schools, Robert Ziliak of Niles, chairman of the Cass County Board of Commissioners, Commissioners Ed Goodman of Silver Creek Township and Carl Higley Sr. of Edwardsburg, Cass County Information Systems Director Kerry Collins, Lewis Cass Intermediate School District Superintendent Robert Colby, Richard DeVos of LCISD, Brian Wood of LCISD, Penn Township Supervisor Richard Mickey, Ron Young of SMC and Gregg Rutgers of Lynx Network Group in Kalamazoo, established in 2003.

The route was laid out looking for population centers between Benton Harbor, Hillsdale, Adrian and Monroe across the southern corridor, and will be coming to Dowagiac from Berrien Springs in the spring of 2011.

From Dowagiac it follows M-62 to Cassopolis, using power lines to hang fiber on utility poles.

Merit is a non-profit formed in 1966 by the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, said Kristen Cunningham, governing member relations manager from Ann Arbor.

“Our project has to be complete by December 2012. We’ll provide 40 10Gig waves and know that can be upgraded to 80 10Gig waves. The main goal of this project is to serve underserved and unserved communities in Michigan. Underserved meaning there’s one provider and it’s cost-prohibitive for people to get access to the Internet and other services. We can introduce some competition.

“In terms of community opportunities, you can go to our Web site, www.merit.edu/meritformichigan/ and click on REACH-3MC. Click on any segment of the route and you’ll be taken to corresponding information.

“I believe this is the last community meeting scheduled this year, but there will be more upcoming in January. You can sign up for an e-mail update list only for this area. You won’t get bombarded with e-mails from all over the state.”

Cunningham added, “We’re engineering specific routes. One of the reasons we’re doing these community meetings is to talk to those organizations that are part of our mission in terms of trying to get them connected to our fiber if they’re interested and getting them on-board so we can all save some federal money in terms of doing the engineering with all of our ducks in a row. We have a company chosen for doing the lateral builds.”

The route extending north through western Michigan to Manistee and Beulah will utilize an acquired 22-mile existing underground conduit.

Fiber will be pulled in next week for the first “footprint” on that portion of the build.

Cunningham said Merit worked from a list of 100 identified “community anchors” for strategic lateral builds it is contacting to gauge interest.

“Some people are more interested and understand it a little bit more quickly than others and jump on board a little bit faster,” she said.

The fiber, considered “middle-mile” infrastructure, enables access to high-performance broadband, benefiting rural and underserved communities across 52 counties.

Merit collaborated with commercial providers on both projects.

Shared infrastructure will serve all sectors of society — community anchor institutions, homes and business.

Local Internet service providers (ISPs) can connect to the REACH-3MC network to bring “last-mile” broadband service to homes and businesses.

Merit’s portion of the fiber will allow state and local governments, universities, schools, libraries, health care facilities and other anchor institutions to connect to Merit’s private, high-performance network, enabling lower costs and consolidating services.

The paths of the REACH-3MC II network will terminate at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, thus connecting Merit’s network with that of neighboring BOREAS-Net, Northern Tier Network and WiscNet networks.

Leveraging these connections, REACH-3MC II will provide direct fiber-optic connections between community anchor institution networks from Alaska to Ohio.