PEORIA — About 12,000 more homes in the Peoria area will be able to hook into i3 Broadband’s fiber-optic network after this summer’s expansion. 

The East Peoria company has already laid fiber-optic cable to a little more than half of Peoria, and 68% percent of homes in Pekin. i3 is also available to some homes in East Peoria, Morton, Peoria Heights and Creve Coeur, according to highspeedinternet.com. 

Residents affected by this year’s expansion are receiving letters in the mail explaining the process before work begins, said Jane Larson, chief marketing and sales officer for i3 Broadband. 

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“We send out postcards that let people know that we're going to start working on construction, and that we will be disturbing your yard. And then we also send out letters during the process as well, just to keep you informed," Larson said. 

Installation is done primarily with a horizontal boring machine, but some holes will be dug to make sure no underground utilities are disturbed, Larson said. 

“Once construction is done, we come through and restore the property back to the way it was. We try to leave it better than we found it,” she said. 

Though burying cable is more labor intensive and expensive than hanging wires from telephone poles, it’s better in the long run, Larson said. 

“Being in the ground provides more protection than being in the air where it is subject to the elements like high wind, tornadoes and — if you live in the South — hurricanes,” Larson said. “If you are going to spend the money to build a network, you want to build it underground to protect it.” 

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In addition to providing residents with another choice for internet and television service, i3 is also bringing state-of-the art technology to consumers. Fiber-optic technology utilizes small, flexible strands of glass to transmit information. Bundled together, glass can carry more data faster and more cleanly than bundled copper cables.  

Customers will likely notice the difference most in download speeds, Larson said. 

“What differentiates us from our competitors is that we offer symmetrical speeds,” Larson said. “You have the same speed from a download and an upload perspective. ... If you did a speed test with Comcast, if you purchased a 250 Mbps (megabits per second) package, you may be getting 250 Mbps downloads, but your upload may only be 50 Mbps. So if you are trying to upload a file back to work, your speed is not as fast as when you downloaded them.” 

Prices begin at $54.99 a month for 250 Mbps internet service. One-gig service is $89.99 a month and includes Wi-Fi pods, which help the router project the signal evenly through the home. i3 provides unlimited data and no overage charges. 

Once installers finish laying cable in a neighborhood, residents will receive a postcard letting them know they can sign up. Installation in individual homes is free.