Lansing's ACD.net Expands To West Michigan
Lansing-based ACD.net announced that it has built a new collocation site in Muskegon and will now provide low-cost data and voice services in West Michigan using industry standard T1 lines.
ACD says its construction of the facilities, which includes fiber transport to the Muskegon office, is critical to lowering costs for businesses, governments, and schools in West Michigan.
Industry standard T1 lines are now available from ACD for as little as $199 per month. Customers can now order phone service at prices far below the existing phone incumbent carriers.
"To support businesses, schools, and government agencies, we have significant expansion plans for West Michigan," ACD.net president Kevin Schoen said. "After years of under-investment, Verizon has elected to sell off its network in Michigan to Frontier. Our technology is much more advanced than the existing incumbent providers, and we offer substantial cost savings to customers in the Verizon/Frontier territories, for customers that have only had expensive service and limited choices."
ACD is building a fiber network that will serve 32 counties in Michigan. The overall network, which is 955 miles, is slated for construction in 2011. The main Western Michigan leg, which covers over 401 miles includes fiber-optic drop off points at Niles, St. Joseph, South Haven, Zeeland, Ludington, Beulah, Traverse City, Kalkaska, Charlevoix, and Petoskey, will connect the west Michigan region to ACD's fiber backbone. This network is funded partially by a federal program to increase capacity in more rural markets, and was awarded in February 2010 to ACD.
Ravitron, a phone and data integrator based in Benton Harbor, uses ACD's network facilities in Southwest Michigan to provide phone, internet, and network integration services to their customers.
"ACD's continuing investments in West Michigan allow us to provide services to customers at very competitive rates," said Ravitron president Dave Ravitch. "For customers in Verizon and Frontier territories, we have not had much of a choice. With ACD's network investment we will be able to significantly lower costs for customers in these markets."
ACD.net says it has already begun turning up customers out of its new facilities.
ACD.net provides digital telephone service and broadband via Ethernet, First Mile, fiber-optics, DSL, T1s, T3s, Wi-Fi, as well as hosting and data center services.
More at www.ACD.net.
ACD Telecom Inc., in conjunction with ACD.net, owns and maintains thousands of route-miles of fiber in communities throughout the state. The ACD fiber network connects to give businesses, institutions and other telecommunications carriers access to ACD.net's high bandwidth and redundant backbone networks, and ACD.net's MPLS network and ACD.net's telephone services.
