Comcast Business has expanded its advanced network infrastructure in downtown Park Forest, Illinois, adding a half mile of fiber optic cable along Forest Boulevard, Victory Drive, Main Street and Liberty Drive. The expansion, which will bring Comcast’s network to more than 100 additional area businesses, is designed to help boost the local economy and make the downtown even more attractive to businesses, residents and visitors.
With the build complete, Comcast Business can provide small, medium and large businesses in downtown Park Forest access to Internet speeds of up to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps)—and up to 100 Gbps on a case-by-case basis—along with a wide range of advanced services, including ethernet, internet, advanced voice and value-added cloud solutions. In addition, Comcast Business will be able to bring new customers along the path of the expansion online more quickly.
“Part of the village’s economic development strategy is to attract more state-of-the-art services to downtown and make them available to local businesses,” said Tom Mick, Park Forest Village Manager. “Thanks to Comcast’s investment, and a collaborative effort between downtown Park Forest property manager, Heather Jones, and Comcast, Park Forest’s downtown businesses will now have access to technologies that will help them compete locally, regionally and nationally.”
“Access to advanced technology drives economic growth,” said Jeff Cobb, regional vice president of Comcast Business. “In addition, advanced technology, faster Internet speeds and advanced services will help businesses serve customers remotely and support growing numbers of employees working in the field and at home.”
Additional advanced Comcast Business services available to downtown Park Forest businesses as a result of the network expansion include ActiveCore SDN, a software-defined networking (SDN) platform providing businesses intelligent, centralized control for their networks via software applications like Managed Router and SD-WAN. Cybersecurity Services reduce vulnerability to denial of service (DDoS) attacks and help protect business infrastructure with managed security solutions.
