BIDDEFORD — Completed in 2012, the Three Ring Binder Project was designed to provide high-speed, affordable Internet connections to rural Mainers and others. This was a major milestone for Maine Fiber Company, the owner/operator of the 1,100-mile fiber optic network, and on Wednesday, the company announced that another milestone was achieved: An audit of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program project federal grant has been completed by the independent audit firm of Berry Dunn.

The federal grant of $25.6 million, received in 2009, largely funded the creation of the network, along with $6.2 million in private funding. With the audit submitted to the Office of the Inspector General, the grant has effectively been closed out.

Now, the company can concentrate on connecting more Mainers to the network, said MFC Vice President of Business Development Jeff McCarthy.

“The challenge now,” he said, “is how do we get fiber to homes and businesses?”

Internet provider GWI in Biddeford applied for the federal grant that provided the lion’s share of funding for The Three Ring Binder project, while private investors in MFC came up with the rest.

The project consists of a 1,100-mile fiber optic network that provides the “middle-mile” of connectivity that reaches from Fort Kent to South Berwick.

In addition, MFC added dark fiber routes that interconnect Maine with Canada and Boston.

Local Internet service providers and others lease space on the network to provide the “last mile,” which directly connects homes, businesses and others to high-speed Internet access.

“We knew local demand for leasing middle-mile dark fiber would grow organically over time, but we also wanted to be sure Maine’s newest fiber optic network was interconnected with international fiber networks, opening up better global connectivity options for Maine,” said McCarthy. “That has worked as intended, and several international carriers now have a point of presence in Maine.”

Currently, he said, the company already has 24 customer agreements for leasing fiber on the network; 18 are Maine-based. Locally, MFC is working on high-speed connection for the University of New England, to connect the Biddeford and Westbrook campuses.

One of the ISPs using the Maine Fiber network is Pioneer Broadband, based in Houlton. Public Relations Director Don Flewelling notes that it has taken “our customers from having nothing to having it all. The fact that it was completed under budget and on time shows what can happen when competing businesses work together.”

The network, which primarily leases middle-mile dark fiber, is operated on an open-access, non-discriminatory basis. Company leaders noted that every request to lease MFC fiber to date had been granted.

Under the specifications of the grant application, The Three Ring Binder middle-mile fiber optic network helps make broadband access more readily available to 110,000 households and 600 community anchor institutions across the State of Maine.

The network has the capacity to provide high-speed Internet connectivity to many more households, business and institutions than the original design called for, said McCarthy.

“Now, we need broad support for additional ”˜last-mile’ fiber solutions to fully realize the benefits of end-to-end fiber optic connectivity and broadband delivery in Maine,” said McCarthy.

It has not all been smooth sailing for MFC, however. In January, GWI, the company that applied for the $25 million grant, filed a lawsuit against the company claiming MFC had misspent millions of dollars of the grant money, which an MFC spokesman denied.

Fletcher Kittredge, founder and CEO of GWI, said his company is in discussions with MFC. McCarthy confirmed the two companies are in ongoing mediation in an attempt to resolve the issue.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.