A company called Peninsula Fiber Network won a major federal infrastructure grant to build more than 500 miles of middle-mile broadband lines to both rural areas in Michigan and other places with clunky Internet connections. Two of the three approved routes will include running special gear beneath parts of Lake Michigan.
Plans call for dual underwater fiber optic cables to connect Chicago and Benton Harbor, with a continuing broadband route extending to Byron Center.
“It’s a more direct route to go across the lake than it is to go around it,” said Jennifer Greenburg, the company’s vice president of government affairs.
Those fiber cables crossing the southern part of Lake Michigan are expected to be instrumental for efforts to develop data centers in Benton Harborand connect Michigan to quantum computing facilities in Chicago.
The underwater cables will be installed below the lakebed to make the infrastructure less likely to be damaged by severe weather, ship anchor strikes, and other challenges.
Additionally, Beaver Island will become a midway connection point in northern Lake Michigan for a broadband route linking Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas. The island is famous for its scenic beauty but also known for its slow online access.
Bobbi Welke, St. James Township supervisor on Beaver Island, said the middle-mile fiber project will be transformational for her rural island community, especially when combined with a last-mile Internet connection project happening locally.
“We will become part of a vibrant broadband network that does not yet exist on the island. Our current reliance on microwave towers, with their backhaul issues, and our current telephone/Internet provider using DSL technology is, quite simply, not reliable,” she said in an email.
“On any day, at any time, we lose our Internet system and more concerning we lose our 911 network. We are looking forward to joining a 21st century telecom system that so many others take for granted.”
From the Upper Peninsula, the underwater portion of the fiber cables will begin near Gulliver at Seul Choix Pointe and stretch southeast to Beaver Island.
On the island, the fiber will run from the northern shoreline at a township campground down the island’s center roadway until turning east toward the Central Michigan University Biological Research Station. At that point, the fiber cables will again go underwater and eventually connect to Charlevoix before extending through Bellaire to Gaylord.
Greenburg said various types of environmental testing for the underwater portions of the routes remains underway, such as hydrographic surveys, geotechnical testing and analysis. The company expects to submit environmental assessments to federal authorities by year’s end, with hopes to begin construction next year or in 2027.
A third route without any underwater elements will connect Port Huron to Flint, serving areas in Lapeer, Macomb, St. Clair and Genesee counties. Construction on that portion is expected to begin this summer, Greenburg said.
Collectively, all three broadband routes are expected to improve Internet connectivity for an estimated 35,000 households in Michigan.
“Every Michigander deserves access to high-speed Internet. It is essential for work, health care, education and our economy,” said Kevin Mehren, director of the Michigan Infrastructure Office, in a statement.
“When we leverage federal funding, we can make historic investments like this one to close the digital divide across Michigan. Laying broadband fiber beneath Lake Michigan is a powerful example of the innovative solutions we’re deploying to connect our most rural communities,” he said.
Middle-mile broadband is the term for high-capacity fiber optic cables that link places without high-speed Internet to larger regional and national networks.
The technology allows for what are called last-mile Internet providers to offer faster online connections to households and businesses, along with improved reliability and redundancy for existing networks.
Greenburg said that when finished, the federally funded project will allow last-mile Internet carriers in Michigan to improve service to multiple areas. And it won’t require those companies to “drag a wire 10 miles or 20 miles to get to an Internet highway,” she said.
The entire $87 million project — all three routes totaling approximately 525 miles — was supported by a $61 million grant awarded two years ago from the National Telecommunications Information Administration. The work has a five-year time clock to complete.
Peninsula Fiber Network is investing $26 million in the project and will retain ownership of the open-access network, offering wholesale rates to other providers.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
