ChoiceLight is two corporations created through a private-public partnership to improve the economic development climate in South Bend, Mishawaka, St. Joseph County, Marshall County, Elkhart County and the region by providing telecommunications infrastructure – and not services – in the form of dark fiber-optic cable.

The ChoiceLight network of fiber-optic cable extends more than 500 miles and has more than 250 subscribers in the most important commercial, education, medical and governmental centers within the network footprint. The network is largely underground and laid out in concentric rings. This design increases reliability. In the rare event of damage to the network, signals can be rerouted to subscribers from the other side of the ring. ChoiceLight provides infrastructure. Subscribers choose among competing vendors and service providers for telecommunications and services such as cloud computing, server virtualization, internet, and others. Perhaps the largest concentration of cross-country fiber networks passes through South Bend near Union Station. ChoiceLight connects subscribers to these networks allowing data to be sent worldwide in milliseconds.

In the late 1990s, Project Future, at that time the local Economic Development Organization for South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County, recognized that economic development opportunities in the region were hurt by the high cost and limited availability of broadband communications. Costs in the region were many times higher than in Chicago, even for the same level of service. Project Future put together a task force including representatives of the City of South Bend, Mishawaka, St. Joseph County, the University of Notre Dame, the Chamber of Commerce and other business and community interests. The task force concluded that a dark fiber, vendor-neutral network would best meet the area’s needs.

St. Joe Valley Metronet, Inc. was incorporated in 2004 with Patrick McMahon, executive director of Project Future; Gordon Wishon, office of communications technology at the University of Notre Dame; and Karl King, a respected South Bend businessman and community volunteer, as the initial members of its board of directors. Bylaws established the makeup of the board, with membership to include government representatives of South Bend and Mishawaka and of St. Joseph County; and representatives of Project Future, the initial founding subscribers and of other business, education and community organizations.

St. Joe Valley Metronet was granted nonprofit, tax-exempt status because its mission was to serve the interests of government. By requirement of the IRS, a second, for-profit, taxable corporation, called SJVM, Inc., was established. The nonprofit would be limited to serving governmental agencies and tax-supported schools. SJVM, Inc., the for-profit, was created to allow service to other users including banks, medical facilities and other commercial and business subscribers.

In 2019, St. Joe Valley Metronet, Inc. and SJVM, Inc. were rebranded as ChoiceLight, Inc. and CLight, Inc.

The for-profit, taxable corporation is wholly owned by the nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation and income earned by CLight, Inc. goes to the nonprofit corporation in the form of dividends to support the nonprofit’s mission.

This model of a nonprofit corporation owning a for-profit corporation is common. One well-understood local example was Notre Dame’s ownership of the WNDU radio and television stations. Broadcasting income supported university activities. Just as in ChoiceLight's case, the structure allows the nonprofit, through the second corporation, to perform beyond the limits placed on nonprofits because the for-profit generates income that benefits the nonprofit.

Seven initial founding subscribers, the University of Notre Dame, Teachers Credit Union, Memorial Health System, St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, Robert Bosch Corp., Madison Center and South Bend Medical Foundation, prepaid 10 years of subscription fees to fund building the network and two years of operational expenses. Metronet also negotiated reciprocal agreements with South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County giving access to conduit through which to extend Metronet fiber. These reciprocal agreements allowed the new fiber network to be built without breaking up streets and sidewalks and significantly lowered the prepaid subscription fees required from each of the founding subscribers. In exchange, South Bend, Mishawaka and the county each received a number of pairs of dedicated fiber for their exclusive use. Metronet paid the costs of installing the fiber, expanding the network and building the redundant ring structure.

Dark fiber is unused fiber. Light carries data signals on fiber-optic cable. ChoiceLight fiber is “dark.” Subscribers choose among competing service vendors or provide the equipment themselves to transmit light through the fiber. Since fiber has virtually unlimited capacity, subscribers are limited only by the equipment used to light the fiber. ChoiceLight's subscription fees are not based on bandwidth, so subscribers can light the fiber at any bandwidth they need.

ChoiceLight service differs in three basic ways. Fiber allows virtually unlimited capacity at speeds many times faster than available over cable, telephone or T-1 lines and wireless networks. ChoiceLight's vendor-neutral, dark fiber service means subscribers choose among competing providers. Competition keeps costs low and encourages innovation. Because the capacity is virtually unlimited, ChoiceLight subscribers don’t have to worry about exceeding data plan limits or service that slows when other users are on line.

The City of South Bend had fiber dedicated to meeting the city’s communication needs, connecting city facilities and linking traffic signals to improve traffic flow. This fiber ran through conduit under city streets. It was neither designed for other uses nor used by entities other than the city. And, prior to ChoiceLight, South Bend’s network was built in a star configuration with many dead-ends. In expanding the network and building the ring configuration, ChoiceLight provided redundancy to South Bend’s operations the city didn’t have with its own network.

ChoiceLight's model is unusual but not unique. Even before ChoiceLight was created, the City of South Bend determined it did not want to be in the telecommunications business. Apart from the bureaucracy and expense of creating a new city-run utility and the significant costs of expanding the existing system to reach nonmunicipal users, it would have put the city in competition with existing telecommunications providers. Some also saw potential issues in extending a city-owned and operated network to users outside the city limits. Many municipally run networks are not dark fiber or vendor neutral, key factors in keeping costs low for ChoiceLight subscribers.