St. Louis, MO, February 14, 2024 – To accelerate the construction of its fiber routes in the Southwestern and Western US, Arcadian Infracom, a critical information infrastructure development company, held a groundbreaking ceremony in East Los Angeles on December 12, 2023, formally commencing construction on the Arcadian Los Angeles to Phoenix fiber route.
In June 2021, the State of California passed historic legislation allocating $6 billion to fund its Broadband for All initiative, including $3.25 billion to create a middle-mile fiber network within California spanning 10,000 planned miles. The California Department of Technology (CDT) leads the Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative that includes state partners California Department of Transportation and the California Public Utilities Commission. GoldenStateNet was chosen as the state’s third-party administrator. The 10,000-mile network is being built with public and private sector partners to ensure digital equity, access and inclusion for all Californians.
In February 2023, Arcadian and California entered a public private partnership as part of the Middle Mile Broadband Initiative and the State became an anchor customer on the California portion of Arcadian’s LA to Phoenix route. This L.A. to Phoenix route is slotted for completion in mid-2027. In October 2023, Arcadian and California announced an expansion of their public/private partnership by adding three new critically needed fiber routes, extending the scope of the partnership to cover over 1,250 route miles of new critical information infrastructure. California now anchors a new Bay Area-Eureka route, and the California portions of the Arcadian San Jose-Sacramento-Reno and Los Angeles-Las Vegas routes. When completed, these new routes will connect major data centers, subsea fiber landing stations and underserved local markets along those routes, forming a key part of California’s 10,000 mile Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative. The California portions of these routes are projected to be completed by December 2026.
Dan Davis, CEO of Arcadian commented, “Over the course of 2023, Arcadian and the California Department of Technology worked closely together to develop additional cost-effective middle-mile network solutions. Thanks to the State CIO and CDT Director, Liana Bailey-Crimmins, and CDT representatives who attended the groundbreaking ceremony which kicked off construction on our LA to Phoenix route. Arcadian continues to be very proud of our role in helping California achieve its ‘Broadband for All’ objective and look forward to continuing our collaboration in 2024.”
Founded in 2018 by seasoned communication industry leaders and headquartered in St. Louis MO, Arcadian Infracom is a critical information infrastructure development, construction and operations company. Arcadian builds diverse, lower latency long-haul fiber routes connecting major data center locations for its cloud and content customers while providing low cost backhaul to digitally stranded rural and tribal communities for its telecom, cable company, ISP and enterprise customers. Arcadian purposefully routes its fiber through remote rural and tribal communities to help bridge the digital divide in the U.S. Arcadian currently has six long-haul fiber routes under development in the Western U.S. that when completed will add 3,500 route miles of critically needed new fiber infrastructure.