Regarding the future of Broadband in FOCO:

We have spent the better part of the last 18 months exploring the best way to achieve our Strategic Objective 3.9 – Encourage the development of reliable, high speed internet services throughout the community. As a part of this work, we have explored four options below and highlights of our efforts are also described.

Do nothing, and allow the market to fill this need
Develop 3rd Party alternatives – a form of Public Private Partnership
Wholesale Model – where the city would build and operate a fiber network and attract service providers to market internet, video, phone, security, etc, services over that city owned network
Retail Model – where the city would build, operate and provide internet and phone services. This is similar to the Longmont business.

At the Dec 20th work session, staff was directed to pursue the 3rd Party and the Retail Model in parallel

We have completed a high level assessment of the municipal owned and operated retail model with the support of an outside consultant that has been involved in over 40 municipal efforts. The high points of a municipal retail model involve an investment of approximately $125M – $140M, a year to design, and 3-4 years to build out the network. Speed offerings of 50mbps or 1gig symmetrical service will be available, with pricing in the $60-$70 per month range for the gig service. This will also require a charter change to allow telecommunications within our L&P enterprise and modifications to our governance to allow discussions on strategic competitive matters in a way that is not telegraphed to the competitors of the municipal broadband business. We have visited several communities that have successfully launch a municipal broadband service and a couple that have not been successful to better understand lessons learned.

We are also developing a 3rd Party alternative where an outside company comes in, commits to build a ubiquitous network covering the entire GMA, they fund the capital cost, operate the network, provide internet service and also provide open access of other service providers which gives the community significant choice and options. Pricing of $60 for 100 mbps and $80 for 1 gig symmetrical service would be available.

May 9th is the next work session to review alternatives and direction.