Spokane County has benefited from an early shared vision and collaborative effort between public, private and community organizations relative to extensive and on-going capital investment into a multitude of high capacity, fiber optic based telecommunications networks. The county has over 500 route miles of commercial fiber-optic infrastructure in place and an estimated 400 buildings connected by fiber. The Terabyte Triangle (TT), a cluster of wired downtown Spokane buildings, is one of the most wired metro areas anywhere, offering high-speed and high-performance internet connectivity. The Spokane HotZone, a 100-block high-speed broadband wireless network located in the Spokane’s downtown core, offers free, high-speed broadband wireless.

The relatively high representation of telecommunication companies in the community encourages an excellent number of network options in terms of architecture, applications, diversity and redundancy. The Spokane region provides a multitude of hosting, co-location, data storage and data center options. Additionally, enhanced solutions and applications such as managed services, disaster recovery, business continuity and hot suite facilities can be addressed through a third party outsourcing strategy.

Recent Recognition

• Spokane Public Schools’ Educational Metropolitan Area Network (E-MAN), a gigabit fiber connection to all classrooms in more than 53 schools and administrative buildings, has been ranked number one in the world.

• City of Spokane has been recognized two years in a row as a finalist in the “Most Intelligent Community of the Year” search by the Intelligent Community Forum.

• For four straight years, Spokane area hospitals have been named in the top “100 Most Wired and Wireless in the Nation” by Hospital and Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital Association.

• Forbes Magazine recently ranked City of Spokane the fifth-safest city in the United States from natural disaster.