Surf Air Wireless, which started in LaPorte, is now Surf Internet.
Surf Internet has started construction on 250 miles of fiber internet to rural homes and businesses.
The telecommunications company got $6 million in public funds from Indiana’s Next Level Connections broadband grant program and is putting up $3.6 million of its own money to extend fiber-optic infrastructure to underserved communities in Northern Indiana. The project will slice through LaPorte and Newton counties.
“Construction on these Indiana projects represents the tangible success we’ve had in our strategy to combine grant dollars along with our own investments to provide underserved residents with high-speed internet,” Surf CEO Gene Crusie said. “Rather than focusing only on homes in densely populated areas, we are applying for grant subsidies in spread-out areas that would otherwise be financially unfeasible to reach on our own. By partnering with local communities in this way, we can expand our fiber network even further, opening the door for better opportunities in education, business, and personal connections.”
The work will kick off in Elkhart County later this month.
“When we launched our community outreach to those residents impacted by the NLC Grant area, we were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from the community,” said Lana Frank, Surf’s chief marketing officer. “Nearly 70% of the households we surveyed indicated a high level of interest for our service.”
Elkhart-based Surf Internet, which was previously Surf Air Wireless when it was based in LaPorte, is getting permits to build fiber-optic infrastructure in Westville, Wanatah, Union Mills, Rolling Prairie and Hanna in LaPorte County.
It will connect 952 homes to high-speed internet in LaPorte County, connecting thousands of residents to faster streaming, Zooming and other internet services. Such services have become increasingly critical as more work, education and other staples of daily life have shifted online, a trend that accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic.
In Newton County, it will connect 88 households and two businesses by Lake Village.
The construction is expected to be complete by April of 2024.
Surf Internet, which maintains an office in LaPorte, also serves Illinois and Michigan in the Great Lakes region.
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