About $40M is grant funding from the state for "last mile" services that is only available to municipalities. The balance of the funding is coming from town borrowing. My town will receive about $1.2M from the grant and will vote in September whether to authorize $2.3M of borrowing that would be paid with property tax.
I'm 95% sure this will go through, and the network would be lit in about 3 years, but I can't get their numbers to work out. I cannot see how they can actually provide service and maintain their network and offer a base service of only $50 / month. If that jumps to $100, I could see remaining competitive, though. On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: > Where is the funding coming from? > I would not be comfortable building in an area where I am sure to get over > built. > > *From:* Christopher Gray <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Monday, July 06, 2015 11:56 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* [AFMUG] Plan to Compete with Municipal Fiber? > > Several of the rural towns in my planned coverage area are looking into > municipal fiber (average density about 10 premises per fiber mile, all > above ground). They're claiming $50 for 25 Mbps service, $79 for 100 Mbps, > and $109 for 1 Gbps. They already have funding authorized in about half of > the towns they are targeting... but they'd be about 3 years from providing > any service. > > Is it reasonable or possible to compete with such a thing? Should I ignore > any area that plans to fund this, or might it be worth getting a foothold > before their system is lit? > > Thanks - Chris >
