Guy sees problem, guy starts business to fix said problem.
That's capitalism. That's America 🇺🇸
In 2002, Jared Mauch bought a home in a rural area just outside of Ann Arbor, MI. As the area developed, and more neighborhoods were built around him, he kept thinking eventually broadband would come close enough to his house that he could get faster internet. But no dice!
He got a quote from one of the big internet service providers for what it would take to bring broadband to his door... and let's just say it was a a little steep.
Mauch at one point contacted Comcast, which told him it would charge $50,000 to extend its cable network to his house. "If they had priced it at $10,000, I would have written them a check."
So what did he do? He did what any enterprising senior network architect with red white and blue pumping through his bald eagle veins.
He started his own ISP!
"It was so high at $50,000 that it made me consider if this is worthwhile. Why would I pay them to expand their network if I get nothing back out of it?"
"I had to start a telephone company to get [high-speed] Internet access."
His company is called Washtenaw Fiber Properties LLC and it serves about 30 houses with fiber-to-the-home broadband internet. They had to call it a phone company, because some people still live in the Cretaceous Period, but he only serves internet.
Red hot, blazing fast, internet.
It ended up costing a bit more than $50k.
Mauch said he has spent about $145,000, of which $95,000 went to the contractor that installed most of the fiber conduits. The fiber lines are generally about six feet underground and in some cases 10 or 20 feet underground to avoid gas pipes and other obstacles.
But now he's got a business and a handful of very happy customers with LIGHTNING FAST internet. He's running it all from his house and said if he ever does decide to move he'll just grant himself an easement to access the equipment on the property.
"I have been surprised at how desperate people are for broadband," Mauch told Ars. "I've always known that this was an issue. But most people don't have either the technical wherewithal or the financial wherewithal to execute a project like this, and I was lucky to have the capability to do both."
Neighborhoods setting up their own services. It's beautiful! Would love to see more of this. Especially in today's environment, think of how much harder it would be for the Tech Overlords to cancel this guy from the internet when they don't have some big stupid weenie ISP to bully into cutting his line.
Here's a video presentation he made explaining the whole story.
