Hayward, a Northern California city between Castro Valley in Union City in Alameda County in the Bay Area, could be getting an 18-mile loop of fiber optic high speed cable in order to serve local businesses, which will utilize the existing conduits in the city’s infrastructure and replace the outdated broadband system that connects these companies.

The company that is installing all these new fiber optic cables under and over the streets of Hayward is the company that did the same to the town San Leandro just south of Hayward, a firm aptly named Lit San Leandro. Addressing why the company chose to redo the city’s Internet in San Leandro and to expand its services to its northerly neighbor, Lit San Leandro CEO Jim Morrison said, “Fiber optic is much, much faster.”

While Lit San Leandro will be using extant conduits in which they would put the fiber optic cables in to run them the length of the loop, its cables will be new. There will be a bundle of 300 cables, of which 270 will be going to local businesses. As a concession for letting Lit San Leandro lay these fiber optic cables in Hayward, 10 percent of the cables will be used by the city to do with as they please, which could be used for city government and public buildings.

This network will primarily be concentrated around areas where there are a lot of technology industries, so in Hayward, connections will be concentrated west of Hesperian Boulevard, which is a biotech and computer center in the city. The connections in San Leandro have helped that city’s companies compete with other companies in the East Bay-Silicon Valley region, which is a technology mecca. It is expected to do the same in Hayward, and may even attract some businesses to move operations/franchises to Hayward thanks to the advanced networks.