Cablefax The Magazine - July 2015 - 22

2015 Top Ops Awards
INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD
Free WiFi for
Downtown Cedar Rapids
ImOn
As the recipient of this year's Independent Community Service
Award, ImOn gets our nod for bringing free WiFi to downtown Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, last year.
Yet that's only part of a larger story about ImOn's service to its community.
The story's much larger, in fact.
Let's fl esh out the WiFi piece fi rst. Announced last October, the
system is a commercial-grade, state-of-the-art network utilizing
access points throughout downtown that are connected to ImOn's
high-speed, 10-gigabit fi ber network. ImOn assumed 100 percent
of the equipment and maintenance costs. It worked closely with
the City of Cedar Rapids to get access to hang WiFi equipment on
City utility poles and streetlights, which power the system.
And everyone, even those who don't get their residential data service
from ImOn, can access the WiFi-network for up to 2 hours daily.
Initially the WiFi network covered one square mile downtown.
Importantly, it also covered two symbols of Cedar Rapids' resurrection
after the devastating 2008 fl oods: NewBo City Market, an
18,000-square-foot retail space featuring fresh food and crafts;
and the McGrath City Amphitheater, an outdoor concert venue on
the west bank of the Cedar River. Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff
Pomeranz says, " I appreciate ImOn's contribution to make this
happen... this service is a big step toward our goal to make Cedar
Rapids a connected city. "
Importantly, the free WiFi network is growing. Visit any park in Cedar
Rapids or neighboring Hiawatha or Marion and you can access it. " We
want to keep expanding " to other public spaces and venues, says Jeff
Janssen, ImOn's VP, Sales and Marketing. " We want people to be able
to move around downtown and have access be seamless. "
Indeed, everything about this project seems relatively big except for
ImOn, a modest-sized company. At just eight years old, the privately
FAST FACTS
Fast Facts
uImOn provides fiber to the home with speeds up to
110Mb, one reason why it's been named Cedar Rapids
and Iowa City's Best ISP by Corridor Business Journal for
4 straight years.
uCedar Rapids is Iowa's 2nd largest city, home to 130K people.
held fi rm, which competes with Mediacom, closely guards its
customer and employee totals. We manage to pry loose an approximation
of its head count when we dig into ImOn's culture, which we
learn is fi ercely local. " All local companies support their communities, "
says ACA EVP and Chief of Staff Rob Shema. " What ImOn does
is wild. " We have to investigate.
Janssen tells us ImOn supports more than 70 charities, causes
and non-profi ts with cash donations and/or in-kind services, such
as free advertising. It also encourages employees to volunteer by
giving them paid time off. We'd heard ImOn supports about as many
charitable causes as it has employees. We ask Janssen to confi rm.
" That's a fair assessment, " he tells us.
As if all that isn't enough, one day each month ImOn takes its entire
truck fl eet offl ine to deliver Meals on Wheels.
Still, there's another part of the story. It's the person who " really
got [ImOn] off the ground in 2007, " according to Janssen-the
company's president/CEO Patrice Carroll, whose extensive telecom
background includes senior positions at MCI Worldcom. More pertinent
to this story is Carroll's commitment to doing good, serving on
the boards of Jr Achievement, United Way and Theater Cedar Rapids,
among many others. From the beginning, Janssen says, Carroll has
insisted " we're a company that not only says it's local, but acts
local. "
Donating a WiFi network to the community and growing it. In our
book, that's acting local.
- Seth Arenstein
22
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July 2015
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