Kendall County to start construction of broadband system in coming months

Construction is set to begin in the coming months on Kendall County’s broadband project to bring high-speed internet to unserved and underserved areas of the county.

The county has entered into agreements with Fox Fiber, a new nonprofit entity that will oversee the implementation and operation of the broadband network. The Kendall County Board approved the agreements at its June 3 board meeting.

“There are more than 3,000 residents of Kendall County that are currently unserved or underserved with internet access,” said Kendall County board member Zach Bachmann, the chair of the Connect Kendall County Commission.

That includes rural areas of Kendall County.

“These companies have only built what’s going to make them the most amount of money possible,” he said. “To a certain extent, going into a rural area where it’s less populated, that doesn’t make that much money. And so we’re building a project that doesn’t need to adhere to that ideology. It’s going to reach everyone.”

The county received a $15 million grant from the Illinois Office of Broadband that will be used to construct two fiber rings across Kendall County. One of the rings will cover the northeast part of the county, including Oswego and the other ring will stretch north to the southwest part of the county, taking in Yorkville as well as Newark and Millington.

“This is the future of connectivity,” Bachmann said in talking about the project. “If this model works, it can be adopted by other communities to have them get this type of service. Because what this project is doing is not just doing something that’s going to make a company as much money as possible. This is meeting our community at the index where its need is at...I could not be more proud of this and excited.”

In addition to the grant, Fox Fiber will obtain approximately $30 million in revenue-based, tax-free municipal bonds to help operate the program.

“It’s going to be economically better for us doing the project this way because we’re only talking out money as we need it,” Bachmann said. “As we’re going to be building the project, we’re going to be taking out separate bond issuances.”

According to officials, Fox Fiber’s debt funding will be solely the responsibility of Fox Fiber to pay based on the network’s operating revenue. The debt has no impact on the county, including no obligation to repay the bonds and no impact on the county’s credit.

Once the bonds are retired, Kendall County will assume full ownership of the network.

In September, the Kendall County Board approved Denver-based technology firm Pivot-Tech to be the county’s partner for building the broadband system.

Construction on the network is scheduled to begin this summer, with service expected to become available to customers in phases as early as the end of 2025.

“We’ll be providing service as we are building out the networks,” Bachmann said. “The rings will be built simultaneously as part of this project.”