A Jacksonville-based telecommunications company is expanding its business, thanks to a new agreement with the city of Palm Coast. The company called Joytel is helping Palm Coast connect to a larger fiber-optic cable network.
Palm Coast IT Director Steve Viscardi says the city created its own fiber optic network called FiberNET to connect city offices. Fiber-optic cables are used to conveniently and quickly transmit information.
“Then we came up with kind of a plan,” he said. “Let’s open this up to other entities - either local agencies or even businesses.”
Though two-dozen businesses signed on, Viscardi says the city’s fiber network was still essentially an island. That is, until this month, when the city connected its network to a larger network run by Allied Fiber, a company with cables running from Miami to Atlanta.
“Now anybody can come into Palm Coast over their what we call Long Haul Fiber,” said Viscardi. “So anywhere along that line, if they can hook to Allied, then they could hook to Palm Coast fiber.”
The connection allows businesses to create private networks, even over hundreds of miles. Viscardi says one company has already used the long-distance network to connect a Flagler County training facility to its main facility in Miami.
Though Allied owns the cables, it’s leasing them to service providers, who keep the networks running. For the Palm Coast deal, that’s Joytel Communications, based in downtown Jacksonville.
Joytel President and CEO Mark Marques started the company in 2003. He says joining FiberNET is a “game changer” for a small telecom company that competes with giants like Comcast and AT&T.
“They were looking for a carrier like Joytel, they were looking for a relationship with us,” said Marques. “That’s something that your larger ones wouldn’t even attempt to do. They wanted X amount of revenue generated from day one. We came in there with our own money, without asking for any kind of client base, and we went in there and stepped foot for a long-term presence.”
Joytel signed a 10-year agreement with Allied Fiber this year, and Marques says the company is expanding rapidly. He says he expects to have Joytel facilities in Miami within two years.