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In 2023 we celebrated our 30th anniversary of the statewide Network.
Those first years were spent finalizing fiber installations and establishing our county points of presence to allow us to take the next step of connecting K-12 schools and other customers to the Network.
More recently, the pandemic taught everyone the need for flexibility and alternatives for connecting to each other, whether it be for your personal life or professional services for healthcare, education, and government. As a telecommunications provider, we need to ensure broadband connectivity is available far beyond the base service level requirements defined by State and Federal guidance.
Today, ICN provides valuable Data, Internet, Voice, Security, and Consultation services to education, healthcare, public safety, and government sectors throughout Iowa. Our focus is listening to our customers and hearing their needs. We are grateful for your ongoing assistance and the trust you have in the ICN staff. We often hear that our people are what really make a difference.
ICN's 30 Years of Service Proclamation
In January 2023, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a proclamation celebrating 30 Years of Service with the Iowa Communications Network.
Impacting Iowans
As part of our celebration of our 30th anniversary, we published our Impact Paper of Providing Services to Iowans. This paper is also a snapshot of our recent impact over the last few fiscal years.
One of the most important pieces of celebrating our anniversary is thanking our customers, partners, and others that have had an impact. ICN would not be successful without the support of all entities.
Download a digital version of our impact paper .
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Supporting Communities
The team at ICN will always support our users and the communities they serve during challenging times through Network capabilities and services.
Below are a few examples of ICN supporting Iowa communities.
During an early Saturday morning a fire broke out at a DHS site. The fire was located on the backside of the building that DHS leased for Child Support Recovery. There were two DHS locations across the street from each other. The fire damaged site was ICN’s main Point of Presence (POP) and where the phone switch and fiber connections supported both offices.
How ICN Provided Support: ICN salvaged the phone switch and other equipment, re-routed the fiber, and had DHS up and running by Monday morning.
During the 2008 floods, ICN equipment was lost or damaged at impacted customer locations. Members of the ICN team stepped up and dealt with issues as they became apparent and planned, when possible, for events they could anticipate. Flood-related customer issues were given top priority in reestablishing or relocating lost Network services.
From June - July 2008, ICN had 44 staff members (approximately 50% of the organization) working in varying degrees of participation and for varying lengths of time to quickly remedy issues as they arose.
Iowa City: The staff of The University of Iowa’s key computing facility, located in the Lindquist building, took extraordinary precautions to relocate ICN equipment. At one point, floodwaters isolated the building. Because of their efforts, no equipment was lost.
How ICN Provided Support: The University and the ICN partnered to re-establish ICN’s Internet connection, so ICN still had two paths out for Internet customers.
Vinton: Kirkwood Community College has a Part II site in Vinton. The battery plant was a loss.
How ICN Provided Support: The center’s operations were relocated to the Vinton-Shellsburg Middle School building while the building was repaired from flooding. The Vinton center reopened in August 2008.
Cedar Rapids Federal Courthouse: FOTs room network equipment was a loss.
How ICN Provided Support: ICN video schedulers worked with regional schedulers to accommodate sessions which had to be relocated due to flooding and evacuations. Federal Courts and Federal Probation Office were relocated from Federal Courthouse to Kirkwood Community College.
Cedar Rapids sites: Four video classrooms in Cedar Rapids were inactive due to flood damage.
How ICN was Affected:
- ICN lost equipment at the Cedar Rapids Community School District offices, which were temporarily moved to Thomas Jefferson High School, until a permanent site is established.
- The Grant Wood AEA classroom was closed until August 2009.
- The Cedar Rapids Public Library was out of service for two years.
- The African-American Museum was hit hard by the floods and their video cart system was destroyed.
As the result of commercial power outages, generator usage at several locations occurred for extended times not typically experienced that allowed network services to continue for our customers with very limited or no interruption.
How ICN Provided Support: ICN continually replaced fuel used during the extended use of three generators in Cedar Rapids, Vinton, and Iowa City to insure service availability.
There were also fiber cuts and relocations experienced as a result of flooding.
How ICN Provided Support: With the assistance of our network managed service provider nearly all of these incidents were resolved within our standard service restoral requirements.
ICN was asked by Iowa Homeland Security to provide MidAmerican Energy with a point to point Ethernet connection to insure their operations would continue with little interruption. MidAmerican’s Council Bluff office was moved to a temporary site on the Western Iowa Community College campus due to Missouri River flooding. ICN provided a 100 Meg connection from Council Bluffs to Des Moines for their use.
Grinnell Regional Medical Center, Toledo Clinic
The ICN rerouted the fiber connection for Grinnell Regional Medical Center in Toledo, which experienced an outage when a tornado touched down in Marshalltown. ICN restored service quickly by bypassing the damaged fiber in Marshalltown.
State Public Defender, Marshalltown
Using ICN’s Managed Voice Service, during the Marshalltown tornado, the State Public Defenders office was able to relocate while still taking calls and conducting business from a remote location.
COVID-19 forced many of our customers to reevaluate their network connectivity to support remote users and statewide telehealth requirements. ICN had the capability in meeting our customer needs.
Healthcare: Thirteen (13) hospitals received bandwidth increases at no charge. Orders were completed within 48 hours of being submitted. Some hospitals have kept the increased bandwidth service levels.
Government: Sixteen (16) government agencies requested bandwidth increases that were successfully implemented within hours of the request.
Voice Mobility: Our VoIP application enabled flexibility to support teleworking State employees. Government employees working remotely continued answering their phones and providing services to Iowans as if they never left the office.
Education: Twenty-four (24) K-12 school districts requested increases in bandwidth during a special funding session through the FCC’s E-rate Schools and Libraries program in October 2020. These requests were quickly implemented, insuring the school districts had the bandwidth they needed.
Public Wi-Fi: ICN assisted Eastern Iowa Community College to enable public Wi-Fi connections at their Bettendorf and Clinton campuses by setting up Wi-Fi connections in parking lots for students to access online assignments.
Emergency Connectivity: The ICN was able to provide services to three county emergency management agencies as the result of the Governor’s State of Public Health Disaster Emergency Proclamation.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continued, a limited number of staff returned to the State Public Defender’s office. It was upon that return, that the Iowa City office discovered that their phone system had failed from a power surge. At the time this office was not using the ICN. They called for help, and in record time, ICN determined a solution. ICN, CenturyLink, and the State Public Defender had the phone system back online within five days.
ICN staff installed a 1Gb Internet connection to Monticello High School. The school administrators contacted ICN on August 13, and ICN’s Internet service was deployed on August 14 by noon. The ICN fiber was still operational, because our fiber to the high school is buried under ground and not aerial fiber. Install time was immediate with the assistance of our emergency generator for power. The ICN provided internet service to the high school while the school’s contracted vendor was down. While the ICN was not the primary Internet provider to the school, the Monticello site is ICN's county access point for Jones County, which provides services to other state and federal government, public safety, and healthcare sites in the area.
Customer Focused
Read how the Network has and is currently making an impact.
​"ICN has been our primary Internet connection for over 20+ years. We have been using the DDoS [mitigation] service for almost four years now. This service is invaluable as learning online has become more prevalent. ICN absolutely benefits Iowans. It was the first provider to bring fiber to each county over 25 years ago. After that most school districts were added. Since we have a large population from Iowa (same for all of the colleges/universities in the state) this connection adds considerable value for Iowans."
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"The ICN provides us with wide area networking, primary Internet service, long distance calling and audio conferencing. They have stability and capacity to do so many critical functions for the public."
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"ICN is the main internet feed for our school and is the backup internet for the tribal government services. The demand for more bandwidth continues to increase every year. Our school is using more online teaching aids and research than ever before. They are also televising sporting events and graduation ceremonies to our internet services. We have been able to meet their needs with consistent access and service."
The ICN’s fiber connectivity is being used to connect two Agriculture and Rural Communities (ARA) base station sites to Iowa State University (ISU) data center. This connection enables the ARA wireless living lab for smart and connected rural communities. [The ICN is] an essential network infrastructure serving the education institutions and other State agencies such as public safety and transportation, the ICN network is an invaluable resource for the State.
Whenever I phone into the [ICN] NOC, it never feels like a large, complex network that serves an entire State. Instead it feels like maybe I’ve called the courthouse in Marengo, where names and voices are familiar and if I never worked with them, always friendly, controlled, and helpful.
"We use the ICN to transport all 911 calls originating within the state. All 911 call centers in Iowa (112) are connected via the ICN. This comes at a tremendous cost savings measure to the taxpayers of Iowa. Starting in 2011, all wireless 911 calls began being transported via the ICN fiber. As I say to many of my peers in other states or other speaking engagements, other states struggle to develop and build out their Emergency Services IP Network or ESInet. Ours was built in the 90's through the ICN, we just didn't know it yet. The availability of the ICN has helped us in our transition to Next Generation 911 in the State."
"The ICN provides [us] with the most cost effective and efficient connection available, allowing us to send our programming out from our Johnston studios to each of our Iowa-based broadcast transmitters."
"We use the ICN to connect to critical resources that assist us in caring for our patients in the emergency room setting. One example is the secure audio/video connection that we have with our providers that work remotely. These providers and nurses are able to assist us in the care of our emergency room patients by way of a secure audio/video connection that travels over the ICN. Another example is our ability to send patient images securely and quickly, by way of the ICN, to be reviewed by radiologists."
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"By having the ICN available to rural areas allows hospitals to connect to specialists all over the state and country for support, which in turn helps patients in Iowa get the care they need in their local community when they need it most! Having these resources available to rural hospitals definitely saves lives of Iowans!"
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"The ICN alongside the Iowa Rural Health Telecommunications Program’s (IRHTP) fiber paths provides the infrastructure to connect healthcare providers across the State. These broadband connections allow for the sharing of information across a secured network that facilitates improved patient care and better outcomes since the patient’s record is accessible to providers and specialists, no matter where in the State they are."
As one of the first networks in the nation focused on education, 30 years later the ICN (Iowa Communications Network) remains on target and on mission. Originally envisioned as the means to deliver broadcast quality remote learning across the geography of Iowa insuring equal opportunity for all, now that private, secure, fiber optic network serves as the backbone for the 911 network, healthcare, primary and secondary education and government services.
Technology has fundamentally changed from the era when the ICN was envisioned, but the investment in fiber optic cable has proven as important in today’s world as roads and bridges were in the past. Government and the authorized users are able to seek the same service efficiencies that technology has delivered to the greater economic environment. During the pandemic the importance of communications accessibility was the conduit that kept economic and government activity operating. The ICN was there, as it has been for every major event for the last thirty years, silently serving Iowans.
Although the network has been technologically transformed a number of times over the years, [it continues to] silently serve hundreds of thousands of Iowans every day. One of the greatest forms of flattery is being copied, and today over 35 states have similar networks dedicated to serving a similar groups of users as the ICN. The states are said to be the cradle of innovation and that has proven true as each of those networks is different in its organizational, operational, and economic approach as the ICN was during its formation.
The benefits accrue to Iowans every day from the visionaries who created the network. Congratulations on serving Iowa for the last 30 years and all the best in the future.
John P. Gillispie
ICN Executive Director
2003 - 2010
When people ask about the early years of the network they are directed to speak with Tony Crandell who began working with the Network in 1989.
We asked Tony some questions about the early years. He first explained that the initial proposal came back not as a microwave project, but as a fiber project. When that fiber project did not move forward, it was then decided to create the statewide Network. Tony was one of a few who crafted an outline for Chapter 8D, which created the State fiber network.
Tony remembered after Kiewit Network Technologies won the bid that the project needed to be trimmed from 10 fibers to each location had a pair and a spare. It was at this time that Tony will never forget when he was asked to be the implementation project manager until the project was finished in 1993.
The first non-educational programming on the network was telemedicine. He remembers the programming which included three hospitals (Fort Dodge, Jefferson, and Methodist in Des Moines). In addition, he remembered Jim Twedt with the Parole Board was the first telejustice user. He told the story of getting that connection going. “We set Jim up in a basement in Boone. He had a backdrop of the Capitol. He was holding probation hearings and his cat jumps up on his desk. Everyone knew then he was not really at the Capitol.”
In the early years, Tony reinforced the advantage of the Network was “one price for the given service no matter where you lived.” At the time, the Network was built for DS3 video and the ICN charged $5 per hour for video conferencing. Tony added, “We were making the top technology available to the smallest town in Iowa, no matter the location.”
How has the ICN evolved today? Tony explained with the video service ending, we became a data warehouse. I would say the biggest evolution was moving from video to data.
Tony ended our conversation saying it was fun being there when the first connections came up for telejustice and telemedicine, and when the DS3 platform was implemented. Tony added, “It was fun being available knowing that I had some little part in coordinating the implementation of the Network. I am not an engineer, I didn’t do the design, I just made the arrangements for it to happen. We have always had a great team here to work with. I enjoy it, and that is why I still do it, it is fun!”