When IdeaTek said it planned to start work immediately after announcing its expansion into Emporia, it wasn’t kidding.
IdeaTek announced a $14 million expansion into Emporia on Aug. 7. At the time, it said construction was already underway. The construction effort has expanded since then and has moved into several neighborhoods where unrelated infrastructure work is underway, notably in or near areas affected by the Southeast Transmission waterline replacement program.
IdeaTek has said the investment will include a 100-percent fiber network at symmetrical upload and download speeds of up to 2.5 gigabits per second. Based in Buhler, IdeaTek is also promising unlimited data, connections without contracts and local customer service. IdeaTek says it plans to give 10,000 homes and businesses reliability and bandwidth they will need for years.
IdeaTek’s expansion comes as Sparklight, which has had a presence for years locally either as Sparklight, Cable ONE or ValuNet once the local provider was absorbed in 2020, announced a $500,000 multi-gig upgrade by the end of the year as part its official launch party this past Tuesday.
