A US man burned ships when he had to choose between accepting the slow internet speeds he could get from internet service provider AT&T or paying $50,000 to have fast satellite internet hooked up to his rural home. Michigan’s Jared Mauch rejected both options and decided to set up his own fiber internet service provider. And he did.
According to the news of Ars Technica, Mauch, which established its own internet network, also started to serve 70 customers. And now it aims to expand broadband internet access and is set to grow from 70 customers to 600.
The story began last year when the US government allocated $71 million to Washtenaw County, Michigan for infrastructure projects. And some of that is devoted to broadband expansion. Mauch has also submitted a proposal to wire households known to be underserved according to an existing survey. “Maybe madness, maybe entrepreneurship… I’m not sure which one yet. But I bid on the whole project in my area and managed to win this competitive bidding process,” Mauch said in a statement.
It now aims to increase its total network to 80 km to expand the project, including several homes that require 800 meters of fiber for a single home. This will cost $30,000 for each of these homes. The setup fee for Mauch is $199.
Customers can choose between 100Mbps internet speed for $55 per month or unlimited data and 1Gbps internet speed for $79 per month. The contract is supposed to be completed by 2026, but Mauch is aiming for completion by the end of 2023. It has already linked some of the required addresses and issued a press release after the first connection was made in June.
Normally work as an Akamai network architect, Mauch’s service currently seems unrivaled in the region. It even acts as a fiber backhaul for a major mobile carrier. Mauch concludes: “I’m definitely well known to all my neighbors… I’m registered as a ‘fiber cable guy’ on people’s cell phones.”
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