The Craig County Council and Moffat County Board of County Commissioners are each contributing $12,500 ($25,000 total) to fund the first phase of the Moffat County Broadband Initiative, according to the Craig Press. The goal of the project, being completed by Mammoth Networks, is to bring more affordable network access to internet service providers with the intent of passing on savings to consumers.
“It’s expensive to build here, so there’s not a very good business case to build fiber to every home and to get the service that people need,” said Michelle Perry Balleck, executive director of the Craig/Moffat Economic Development Partnership. Balleck added that building this infrastructure could make it economically viable for more internet service providers to serve rural population centers, the Press reported
The open-access network will allow internet service providers to connect to a city-owned, high-speed network at a set rate. In Mammoth’s plan, all the fiber cables will converge in one place, called a Meet Me Center, with no limit to the number of internet service providers allowed to plug-in, as long as the network isn’t over-burdened.
Additionally, this initiative is part of Project THOR, which is seeking to build up the infrastructure between Denver, where the network is generated, and internet service providers on the Western Slope and in mountain communities of Colorado.
“Project THOR will make sure that the network we build for Moffat County connects to the rest of the world, essentially,” Perry Balleck told the Press.
The next step for the broadband initiative includes Mammoth Networks creating a financial model around the cost of construction, which is expected to take 90 days.
April 6, 2018
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