About

Ironton Telephone Company, Inc. (ITC), is an Independent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) operating in their certificated exchange area northwest of Allentown, Pennsylvania. ITC has a proud, over 100-year history of providing superior voice and data services to its subscribers. ITC has two subsidiary companies; Ironton Global is a CLEC that provides voice services throughout the State of Pennsylvania and Keystone Metro Fiber (KMF) which was created by ITC to design, construct and operate fiber optic and wireless networks and provide high-speed broadband service outside of its certificated ILEC territory. ITC has significant resources to support its subsidiaries including construction, installation, back office, billing, a network operations center (NOC), and financial resources. ITC will utilize these capabilities as well as their planning, engineering, sales and marketing skills to design, construct and operate a world-class, carrier-grade middle mile network throughout the entire Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. This network will include the major markets of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton and smaller markets of Emmaus, XX, etc. Expansion to Reading and Lancaster in the future is also anticipated. The network will connect many hospitals, educational institutions, libraries, and the residents of the XX municipalities it connects. The network will provide dark fiber and capacity to other entities on a non-discriminatory basis as well as high-speed broadband to all institutions and underserved residents in the Valley. The municipalities will enhance their broadband capabilities in the areas of education, healthcare, public safety, and providing high-speed broadband to unserved and underserved residents.

Ironton Telephone Company has been installing fiber to the curb for the last 10 years and to the premise for over 3 years. Today they have successfully constructed over 25 fiber route miles and Ironton’s fiber passes over 6,000 businesses and residences and has successfully transitioned over one thousand customers from copper to fiber to the home in their ILEC territory. In addition to the long history and capabilities of ITC, the management team has over 175 years of combined telecommunications experience and 70 years of combined fiber experience. Patricia Stewart, the majority shareholder, and CEO of the Ironton Telephone Company is a telephone pioneer.

ITC is planning to construct an enhanced fiber backbone network through its subsidiary Keystone Metro Fiber, LLC. (KM) The process includes joint planning with Lumen, Crown Castle and Everstream to decide where new fiber is needed to cover the entire AREA and TO provide businesses and enterprises gigabit services, provide anchor institutions at least one gigabit per second symmetrical service and provide cellular carriers Neutral Host and Roaming service. The network will support twenty-first century technology known as Optical Transport Network (OTN). OTN uses Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) combined with packetized optical frames to get maximum efficiency and the lowest latency from the network. Access Points along the network use Reconfigurable Add/Drop Multiplexers to provide just the required band-with to any institution along the route.

In addition to the fiber backbone, KM will use its three FCC-licensed CBRS Priority Access Licenses (PALs) to provide highly secure private networks for hospitals, educational institutions, and libraries. These institutions will benefit from the vast improvement over existing Wi-Fi networks with better coverage, higher speeds and capacity, and increased security. These private networks will be both indoor and outdoor on campuses using small cell technology. KM will also use these private networks to improve cellular coverage in these institutions by becoming a Neutral Host, with equal access to all cellular carriers. ITC will construct a MOCN Gateway in their Central Office to provide this capability.

ITC/KM is currently engineering its fiber route and applying for an NTIA Middle-Mile Grant. It is also installing its first outdoor CBRS installation using Ericsson 5G Massive MIMO equipment it downtown Allentown.