About Fosiva Gigabit Internet

About Fosiva

Our company was founded by real estate developer Troy Mertz and the Fiber to the Home “FTTH” technology was first deployed in his sub-division in Gilberts, IL called The Conservancy. As development in The Conservancy began research indicated that the current high speed Internet options for local residents was dismal. So poor in fact, that residential homeowners in Gilberts had been complaining to the municipality for years about the performance of Internet service providers in the community.  

The "cable" market in Gilberts, much like many parts of Kane County, has been fragmented by multiple providers such as satellite, AT&T and Mediacom Cable. The companies operating in these markets choose to maximize cash flow rather than upgrade technology because management feels it is too risky to make large capital investments required to improve Internet services. They are essentially unmotivated to invest in technology that would bring those customers an Internet experience worthy of the 21st century.  

The decision to start Fosvia with Fiber to the Home technology for every home in The Conservancy was easy. When new subdivisions open, developers seek “will serve” letters from utility companies. Despite attempts to get Comcast, Mediacom, Wide Open West and others to offer a triple play package for the community, the only company willing to serve was AT&T. On the first day we opened the model, AT&T connected the sales office with 16Mbps Internet service. Mr. Mertz then went to work quickly on building the fastest Internet service available in the country today. Within the first week of the model being opened, Fosiva was launched and AT&T took notice. AT&T immediately upgraded their network to the “quad” 24Mbps technology and their technicians spent weeks replacing all of the older technology which was just installed. Fosiva then started offering FTTH Internet service to homes with 1000Mbps in January, 2016 and AT&T once again went to work replacing the older technology. Today, residents in the Conservancy have a choice of Internet from Fosiva with FTTH 1000Mbps or AT&T which is offering their best internet package available in the Chicago market with 350Mbps download speeds. They do not advertise the upload speeds because there is a significant drop-off in speeds compared to Fosiva.

Today, together with the Village of Gilberts, we are expanding our network to offer world class Internet in our community. Through a private - public partnership, Fosiva and Network Gilberts has become the first new public utility in the municipality since running water and sewer were added centuries ago. By listening to the concerns of residents, the Village Board and Staff in Gilberts helped create this bold initiative that will better serve the needs of the community for the centuries to come. In twelve short months, Gilberts has gone from an under-served broadband community to a state of art Internet technology corridor that benefits residents and businesses alike.

The Conservancy is the only subdivision in the entire State of Illinois to have every home built with Fiber to the Home "FTTH" technology which offers broadband capacity so lightning fast that it creates an “Internet at the speed of light” experience. Fosiva has constructed an Internet backbone that interconnects to the world’s largest data center located at 350 E Cermak in Chicago. Our network is designed by Northern Illinois University and their team at iFiber.org which runs network capacity throughout our region. The Fosiva network is growing every day as we continue to build in redundancy with new backbone connections to the Kane County Government broadband Internet assets.

From Gilberts, IL, Fosiva plans to continue expanding into new neighborhoods. Working with the team at the Kane County Technologies Department, Fosvia plans to build the Fiber to the Home 1G Network Capacity throughout Kane County. At Fosiva, it is our mission to create a reliable Internet at the Speed of Light experience for our customers.