ICN Completes Significant Network Upgrade Across Southern Iowa

The Iowa Communications Network (ICN) has completed a major technology upgrade across Iowa's southern tier, spanning 278 miles from Council Bluffs to Burlington. The project enhanced equipment at 12 rural aggregation sites to pure-10Gb connections, strengthening the state-owned fiber optic infrastructure.

The upgrade supports critical redundancy and addresses increasing bandwidth demands for essential services including public safety, healthcare, government, and education users. ICN's engineering team executed the project using a methodical "daisy-chain" approach, upgrading sites sequentially with equipment supporting 24x10Gb connections, replacing the previous 24x1Gb technology.

This southern tier enhancement is part of a comprehensive network improvement initiative affecting 156 aggregation locations statewide. The project builds upon ICN's previously completed 100Gb core upgrade, ensuring the network can meet future capacity requirements.
The upgraded sites include Council Bluffs, Glenwood, Red Oak, Corning, Creston, Osceola, Chariton, Albia, Ottumwa, Fairfield, Mount Pleasant, and Burlington. This initiative utilizes ICN's extensive 3,400-mile fiber optic network to deliver enhanced Ethernet and IP services through a more resilient infrastructure.
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To date, ICN has successfully upgraded 62 locations, with 15 more installations currently underway and plans to enhance approximately 79 additional sites in the future.

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