PLATTSBURGH -- The CBN Connect broadband network has taken another step forward with the selection of an engineering design firm.

Adesta LLC, based in Omaha, Neb., has been chosen to create the detailed engineering design of the project's first phase.

The fiber-optic core ring will first connect to the members of the Adirondack Champlain Telemedicine Information Network (ACTION) and to Internet2, the next generation of the global computer network.

ONLINE BY 2010

CBN Connect has received slightly more than $7.6 million in grants from the Federal Communications Commission's Telemedicine Rural Health Care Pilot Program to build Phase 1. The design is expected to be done in August, with construction starting next spring and the network online early in 2010.

"This is the jump start we were looking for," CBN Connect Project Coordinator Julie West said.

ACTION members are Adirondack Medical Center, Alice Hyde Medical Center, CVPH Medical Center, St. Regis Mohawk Tribe Health Center, Elizabethtown Community Hospital, Clinton Community College, North Country Community College and Plattsburgh State.

CBN Connect is being managed by the Technical Assistance Center at Plattsburgh State in conjunction with the Research Foundation at SUNY. The goal is to create a nearly 500-mile broadband network to provide service throughout Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties.

BENEFITS

Technical Assistance Center Director Howard Lowe said the ACTION members deserve credit for working together.

"The eight organizations that make up that consortium deserve a lot of credit for their vision in seeing how better broadband would help them deliver their medical services. This will not only benefit them but also their patients and their students."

Potential benefits include access to electronic health-care records and to health-care specialists who are hard to attract to this region; colleges being able to bring classes right to health-care facilities; and the ability to monitor patients from their homes.

The network, when completed, will be have open access that will allow interested companies to bring service to outlying areas. West said Time Warner, Charter, PrimeLink, Westelcom, Ridgeview Telecom and others have expressed interest.

NON-PROFIT ARM

Next up, CBN Connect plans to establish an affiliated non-profit corporation in October. It will apply for additional available funding this fall from the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration, Empire State Development and the State Office for Technology.