Orlando, Fla. -- Fatbeam, a competitive access provider, today announced winning E-rate contracts with the Bend School District in Bend, Oregon and the Pasco School District in Pasco, Washington to build fiber infrastructure for ultra-high-speed Internet.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn recently highlighted Fatbeam during a FCC Hearing on the 2015 E-rate season for championing the federal program to “deploy and provide smaller markets with competitive options.”

Fatbeam enters a market by building fiber optic networks for individual school districts. Once the network is fully constructed in that district, Fatbeam is able to offer fiber to other entities in the community – including hospitals, banks, local government offices as well as telecom and Internet carriers, driving economic development.

“Markets under 150,000 in population are frequently lacking competitive options for fiber based services,” said Fatbeam president Greg Green “In addition to the school districts, Fatbeam will also invest capital to reach the core business parks, developments and other key facilities in our partner communities to help drive local economic development.”

Bend School District – Bend, Oregon
Fatbeam has entered into a long-term agreement with the Bend School District to build a high capacity fiber optic network 20 gigabit lit fiber services to the school district and its 23 facilities.

“Cascade Divide operates internet data centers in markets such as Bend and high performance fiber connectivity is critical to our customers success. Fatbeam’s dark fiber options and routes are a perfect choice for our key clients' connections to our data centers and infrastructure,” said Jeff Henry, SVP, Cascade Divide Data Centers. “We see Fatbeam as a strategic partner and look forward to working with them to create a world class fiber network for the Bend School District.”

Pasco School District – Pasco, Washington
Fatbeam has entered into a long-term agreement with the Pasco School District to build a high capacity fiber optic network and deliver 20 gigabit lit fiber services to its 24 school district facilities. The contract reduces the School District cost per megabit of fiber optic based price per meg by as much as 94% as the district goes from one gigabit to twenty gigabit speeds. The school district plans to implement a newly constructed fiber optic network from Fatbeam that dedicates four fibers into each school district location in a diverse fashion that will provide redundancy and resiliency. Fatbeam is in the process of engineering and designing its estimated 30-mile newly constructed network.

The school’s use of the FCC E-Rate program, which finances connectivity for schools and libraries, also made for an efficient and cost effective solution in the current environment of tight educational budgets. Fatbeam and the Pasco School District agreement takes effect June of 2016 providing plenty of time to construct the multi-million dollar fiber investment for the community of Pasco.

Fatbeam