Nearly three years later, Ann Arbor-based Merit Network is almost done with its vaunted Blue Line.

The Blue Line connects the state's universities with an extensive, 500-mile-long fiber network. That translates to an almost unlimited bandwidth between the institutions of higher learning.

"The project is just about done," says Elwood Downing, vice president of member relation, marketing and communications for Merit Network. "We just have to complete the link to Ferris State University."

That should happen by the end of the year. Merit Network is also working to extend the high-bandwidth superhighway to the Upper Peninsula. It has extended fiber optic cable across the Mackinaw Bridge so Michigan's two peninsulas can communicate with each other without going the roundabout way through Wisconsin.

Merit Network is a non-profit corporation governed by Michigan's public universities founded in 1966. It owns and operates America's longest-running regional research and education network.

Source: Elwood Downing, vice president of member relation, marketing and communications for Merit Network
Writer: Jon Zemke