St. Louis Businesses, Municipalities Thriving Thanks to High-Capacity Fiber Access from Everstream

Press Releases – Jun 09, 2021 -CLEVELAND – Everstream, the business-only fiber network, today announced that its fiber network in greater St. Louis is enabling enterprises, service providers and municipalities to take advantage of new revenue opportunities that access to high-capacity, high-bandwidth fiber networks can bring to metro, rural and underserved areas.

Last August, Everstream announced plans to build an 800-route-mile network and invest more than $38 million in the greater St. Louis area. Everstream’s entry into this market represents the first new business connectivity provider to enter greater St. Louis in the past decade.

One of the beneficiaries is Gateway Fiber, a leading internet service provider in the region. Gateway is taking advantage of nearby fiber access from Everstream to bring high-speed connectivity to residential and business customers in greater St. Louis through its Fiber to the Home (FTTH) initiatives. Gateway Fiber has targeted service areas that generally are underserved by other broadband access providers yet require additional bandwidth to accommodate the rise in customer demand.

Gateway is expected to reach 30,000 homes passed by the end of the year. Because Gateway is focusing its efforts on one community at a time, it’s able to deliver local customer service, better understand its markets, and be a part of the communities where it provides service.

“Gateway has lofty growth objectives. Our partnership with Everstream is helping us meet those objectives while serving more customers,” said John Meyer, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, Gateway Fiber. “We’re able to deploy the network at a pace that’s necessary for our high-growth stage.”

Another beneficiary of Everstream’s St. Louis rollout is The City of O’Fallon, Missouri. As more of the city’s business systems and applications migrate to the cloud, it is imperative the city has access to fast network speeds and bandwidth to eliminate existing bottlenecks, while scaling to support future growth and emerging technology.

Everstream’s dark fiber network allowed O’Fallon to move away from inadequate connectivity solutions and provided much needed redundancy to key locations. The dark fiber network is now connecting six buildings throughout the city that previously didn’t have connectivity, overcoming some physical obstacles like crossing railroad tracks that run through the city.

“Having a dense fiber network as a foundation helps our staff to better meet the goals of providing excellent customer service for our taxpayers,” said Paul Huff, IT Director, City of O’Fallon. “With Everstream, we found a company that is nimble enough to work with the unique needs of the city, yet large enough to provide top-level service and support. Our five-year strategic plan calls for expanding network connectivity to all city buildings, allowing the city to take advantage of technological advancements in mobile computing and potential Smart City initiatives.”

A third beneficiary of Everstream’s entry into the market is Saint Louis University. Home to more than 12,000 students, Saint Louis University is located just a few miles away from Everstream’s local office in the heart of downtown. When local construction threatened to cut service to campus, Everstream delivered a dark fiber connection—a secure, scalable option that is exclusive to SLU.

“Everstream has quickly become a true partner to Saint Louis University,” said Kevin Proot, Director, I.T.S. Network, Telecommunications and Data Center Services, Saint Louis University. “They came through for us at a critical time with an unmatched sense of urgency and attention to detail.”

Everstream’s St. Louis area network connects to a state-of-the-art data center in the downtown business district. And with access to another 52 data centers, Everstream provides a direct connection to additional markets across its footprint.

“The greater St. Louis area is a microcosm of what we’re seeing as we build and expand our high-capacity fiber network: business-rich areas as well as underserved metro and rural markets that each can benefit from access to a robust fiber backbone,” said Everstream CEO Brett Lindsey. “Businesses, service providers and municipalities are welcoming us with open arms as we provide them another option for connectivity in St. Louis.”

Everstream’s enterprise-grade network delivers robust business fiber services, including dedicated internet access, dark fiber, Ethernet and data center solutions. Everstream’s advanced fiber network offers direct peering with all major carriers and cloud hyperscalers. With high-speed, low-latency connections, it can accommodate converged internet, voice and data services at speeds of up to 100 Gbps.

To learn more about how Everstream can serve your business, visit our network map at everstream.net/network-map.