Utilities - The Fuel for Growth
Electric Power
Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) is the electric, water and sewer utility serving the consolidated City of Jacksonville/Duval County and portions of other Northeast Florida counties. As of 2008, the JEA system has a total generating capacity of over 3,000 megawatts, of which more than 400 megawatts is reserve capacity. Competitive electricity rates and outstanding reliability ensure a level of predictability for businesses. Other electric providers in Northeast Florida include:
Water & Sewer
JEA provides water from the Florida Aquifer to the majority of the consolidated governmental areas of Jacksonville/Duval County and portions of other North Florida counties. JEA also supplies sewer service by operating and maintaining five large sewage treatment facilities. Other water and sewer providers include:
Natural Gas
Natural gas service is provided privately by TECO-Peoples Gas for almost the entire state of Florida. Natural gas is either presently available at industrial parks or readily available.
Telecommunications
Economic development is driven by access to markets, transportation, labor and communications. The three elements of bandwidth access are capacity, choice and redundancy. Jacksonville's railroads, which carry the bandwidth, are the key to telecommunications because the freight of the future is data. The old adage of location, location, location is something Jacksonville is proud of when it comes to our telecommunications network.
Most major business districts and employment centers in the Jacksonville metro area are served by a fiber-optic-based diversely routed network infrastructure. This infrastructure consists of SONET fiber optic ring technology connecting customer locations with serving central offices. Additionally, SONET ring architecture is used to connect central offices and multiple interexchange carrier POP locations. Digital central office switches are used in the major business districts and employment center areas in Jacksonville including the two LATA tandem locations. Sufficient fiber infrastructure flexibility is available to provide customized fiber serving network arrangements to meet any customer's specific voice, data, or video needs. Jacksonville's ring infrastructure consists of diversely routed main and protects fiber paths using true route diversity, not a collapsed ring topology.
Telecommunications providers in Jacksonville include: