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Two Finalists to Build Moline Broadband Project

City Administrator Bob Vitas says both companies estimate it would take about two years to complete the project.

"In the case of Windstream, they said they would go 100 per cent underground, and they would have ubiquitous service meaning no property would be without high speed fiber. MetroNet, on the other hand, said they would put 89 per cent of the fiber up on poles but they would have ubiquitous service as well."

Included in the project would be fiber connections to all 104 traffic signal locations in Moline, to control the signals and for traffic control cameras, plus connections to parks, schools, and other locations for security cameras.

Vitas expects negotiations with Windstream and MetroNet will be completed sometime in June, with an awarding of the contract in early July.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois. While a graduate student in the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield (then known as Sangamon State University), he got his first taste of public radio, covering Illinois state government for WUIS. Here in the Quad Cities, Herb worked for WHBF Radio before coming to WVIK in 1987. Herb also produces the weekly public affairs feature Midwest Week – covering the news behind the news by interviewing reporters about the stories they cover.