A man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of residences, Because he couldn’t obtain reliable internet service from AT&T or Comcast, Jared Mauch, a Michigan guy, who founded a fiber-to-the-home Internet provider, is expanding with the support of $2.6 million in federal money.
About 30 remote residences were serviced by Mauch’s ISP at the time of our article in January 2021, including his own. According to a phone chat with Ars Technica in mid-July, Mauch is now serving roughly 70 customers and plans on expanding his network to almost 600 more properties with funds from the American Rescue Plan’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds.
Washtenaw County received $71 million from the federal government for various infrastructure initiatives, with a portion of the money going toward broadband. According to Mauch, the county undertook a broadband survey prior to the pandemic in order to identify areas that were not yet serviced. “Based on the current survey, the county issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking contractors to wire up residences that were known to be unserved or underserved, ” he stated.
I bid on the entire project [in my area] since they had a gap-filling RFP and “in my own wild foolishness or brilliance…I’m not sure which yet,” he said. Washtenaw County has chosen Mauch’s ISP as one of four for the wiring of various locations.
According to Mauch, the government-funded project will require an additional 38 miles of fiber to be added to his network’s current 14 miles. Since there are only a handful of people living in this rural area, Mauch estimates that he’ll have to spend “far over $30,000” on each of the properties he wants to service.
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a 100Mbps connection with unlimited data for $55 per month
According to an agreement reached in May 2022, Mauch must expand his network to 417 addresses in the townships of Freedom, Lima, Lodi, and Scio. Mauch is a resident of Scio, a suburb of Ann Arbor.
Despite the fact that the contract only needs access to 417 locations, Mauch said that his new fiber links will pass 596 potential consumers. Even though he’s going beyond addresses covered by other grant programs, he expects to be the first to construct in those locations.
For $55 a month, Mauch will give symmetrical 100Mbps Internet with unlimited data, and for $79 a month, Mauch will provide 1Gbps Internet with unlimited data. There are normally $199 charges for Mauch’s installation services. Mauch bills are basic, with only one line item for Internet service and no other charges.
Mauch has agreed to take part in the Affordable Connectivity Program of the Federal Communications Commission, which offers $30 monthly subsidies to households that satisfy the eligibility requirements.
By the end of 2024, all project costs must be incurred and the project must be completed by the end of 2026, as stipulated in the contract. Ars quotes Mauch as saying that his “objective is to build roughly half of it by the end of this year, and the rest by the end of 2023,” which is a far shorter schedule. Funding totals $2,618,958.03 for this project.
AT&T offers 1.5Mbps, while Comcast wants $50,000.
Mauch’s primary position at Akamai is as a network architect, not as an ISP operator. After being unable to receive modern service from any of the big ISPs for roughly five years, he began preparing to establish his own network.
Since last year, AT&T has only offered DSL with download rates of 1.5Mbps at his address. If Comcast had asked for only $10,000 to extend its cable network into his home, he said he would have signed on the dotted line. Even if the majority of the neighborhood already has Comcast service, Comcast nevertheless charges these up-front costs for line extensions when customers are outside of its network area.
Previously, Mauch had been using a fixed wireless service that provided 50Mbps. Mauch also told us that he provides free 250Mbps service to a church that was previously having issues with its Comcast service in addition to his own residential customers. For a big mobile carrier, Mauch also offers fiber backhaul to a couple of cell towers.
The broadband investment being hailed by county as “historic”
Some of the essential residences have already been connected to the grid thanks to Mauch’s efforts. It was a “historic broadband infrastructure investment” that “created a path for every household to receive high-speed broadband Internet,” according to a news statement released by Washtenaw County when the first home was connected in June.
The county plans to invest $15 million in broadband infrastructure, using both federal and local monies. When combined with other ISPs picked by local government officials, “approximately 3,000 Washtenaw County residents will be connected as a result of this investment within several years,” according to a news release.
Mauch hopes to begin building around a lake in Freedom Township on August 22nd as one of the sites he is supporting. Aside from cell phone coverage, the area has been without it for a very long time, he explained, therefore it’s a lower-income neighborhood. It’s our intention to quickly close the gap on them..”
The county was allegedly in talks with cable giants Comcast and Charter, as well as Midwest Energy and Communications, for the remaining three Internet service providers. A contractor working on the overall project verified to Ars that those three companies had secured contracts with the county.
According to state law, “Municipalities in Michigan are not simply able to decide to develop and operate their own networks; they must first issue an RFP for a private operator to come in and build.” “There can be no construction and ownership of the network if the RFP receives more than three competitive offers. In addition, municipalities are required to perform public hearings and submit cost-benefit analyses and feasibility studies as part of the process.”
The county’s RFP specified a strong preference for “at least 100Mbps download speeds, ideally with symmetrical upload rates, using wireline technology to suit the present and future bandwidth-hungry applications,” yet the minimum acceptable tier was 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload.
Mauch’s equipment costs are rising.
Mauch has made certain improvements to his business. After describing Mauch’s use of an air compressor to blow fiber down his conduits in a previous article, we now know why. Recently, he paid less than $4,000 to buy an industrial air compressor at a government liquidation auction for a piece of equipment normally valued at more than $20,000. After spending $8,000 on a machine that installs cables or conduits beneath driveways and roads without excavating huge holes, he was ready to tackle this project.
There has been a rise in prices. In the past, Mauch purchased fiber conduit for 32 cents per foot, but now he is spending more than double that much for the same product. His network has handholes dug into the earth that used to cost $300, but now cost approximately $700, he said.
On the other hand, a wealthy family contributed roughly $60,000 to the extension of the network in order to allow “them and all of their neighbors to gain Internet connection,” according to Mauch.
A contractor installed most of the fiber conduits in Mauch’s building, but Mauch installed all but a few of them personally. A few contractors are working for him, but there is still some fiber-laying labor that he does himself.
Last year, Mauch rented an air compressor and used it to blow out water-filled conduits. There was water mist in the air, so folks almost a mile away assumed it was smoke and asked for help. Two days later, the fire department came out and put out the fire. “They couldn’t figure it out for a long time. We talked about it after seeing each other again the following day.”
“I’m referred to as the “fiber cable guy” by many folks.”
According to Mauch, network administration has been trouble-free for the past 18 months or so. Typically, his network handles 500Mbps of traffic, but he has the ability to increase that to 4Gbps if necessary, he said.
As a result, Mauch took a vacation to Europe in March, where he said he had emergency personnel on standby “so I may go on vacation” as well. While he was on vacation in Europe, a power outage occurred at a substation in his region. During the power loss, some of Mauch’s customers were unable to access the Internet, but the generator at his home ensured the network’s continued operation.
As a result of the power outage lasting for 24 hours, “my house ran on generator for 24 hours and I was able to see whose clients were out of service,” he explained.
Since becoming an Internet service provider, Mauch’s life has taken on new meaning. “As a result, I’ve become a household name in my neighborhood. People save me as ‘fiber cable person’ in their phones “he stated. There are fewer strangers in my life now since the world has shrunk and I’ve met more people.
