SilverLight Fiber Network

The future of internet is coming to Jackson — and you can get it delivered to your door for free.

Silver Star Communications is rolling out a whole new infrastructure called the SilverLight Fiber Network, with construction imminent.

"We're pretty excited about it," said SilverLight CFO Jeff England. "In the simplest terms, our plan is to bring fiber to every location within the city limits of Jackson, to everyone who would like to receive it."

Fiber-optic cable is able to transfer massive loads of data with little to no signal degradation over long physical distances — unlike traditional lines. SilverLight's service expects to reliably deliver connections at up to 10 gigabits per second, at least 10 times the maximum speed of cable-based internet service.

SilverLight's offer to route a brand-new fiber “drop” to your house comes with only one catch: You will have to sign up for internet service to use it. The company, however, does not insist that you sign up with it specifically.

"It's kind of a one-dig plan," explained England. "We are building a fiber-optic network, and it will be open to other internet service providers to basically lease that fiber so that they can service their customers, and they don't have to do new construction. Right now we have five internet service providers that have already expressed an interest in participating in the network."

Though the task of laying a network of new fiber to potentially every house in Jackson is daunting, SilverLight will be taking it on without asking for public funding.

"This type of an open-access network, where there's some consumer choice, is becoming more popular now," England said. "But in every case I'm aware of, it's an investment that a city or a county would make using public funds. And it usually has some kind of bonding or tax consequences to the residents. What we are super proud about, to our knowledge we're one of the few, if not the only, where it is a 100% privately funded project. So basically all of the residents of the city of Jackson get the benefit of a network without any tax or use of public funds to complete the project."

To sign up for a free fiber drop to your home, visit www.silverlight-fiber.com.