Just days after Indiana announced that it will receive over $868 million in federal funding to address rural broadband, the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN) hosted a roundtable on its broadband initiatives at the request of Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch.

The event had been in the works for some time, according to WHIN CEO Johnny Park.

“But the timing could not have been better,” says Park. “This was an opportunity to make the case for including broadband solutions that go beyond speed to addresses and include the innovations in virtual and AI-based wireless technologies that can make the rural broadband business model sustainable and able to keep up with the ever-growing needs of rural communities going forward.”

The Wabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN) announced today that it will be working with Microsoft TechSpark to foster inclusive economic opportunity, job creation, and innovation in the ten-county WHIN region. With a particular focus on innovation, WHIN will use this opportunity to introduce Internet of Things (IoT) technology into school safety programming. IoT can give teachers and administrators instant and silent access to law enforcement in emergency situations.

MetaLINK Technologies, Inc. (MetaLINK), a wireless service provider in Defiance, Ohio, is now offering high-speed internet services to the WHIN region through WHIN’s next-generation broadband deployments.

“The WHIN-equipped towers that MetaLINK will use are currently capable of up to 100/20 Mbps wireless service, while some locations can reach up to 400/100 Mbps,” says Greg Jarman, Vice President for Broadband Partnerships for WHIN. “We know that there are businesses and residents in our region who do not yet have access to anything approaching that capability.”