Three years after Centennial voters approved a measure clearing the city to explore building its own broadband network, a Canadian company is asking, will you pre-order gigabit internet for $89 a month?
If enough people bite, Ting Internet will bring its fiber-optic network to residents of the city as early as next year.
44 Colorado cities and counties voted yes to start exploring municipal broadband in November 2015.Centennial was one of the first communities in the state to opt out of a 2005 state law known as SB152, which restricts municipalities from using taxpayer money to build broadband networks. By the time Centennial voted in 2013, the city of Longmont was already getting its gigabit Internet service up and running. In Colorado, 71 cities and counties passed a measure freeing them to look into municipal broadband. Another 14 will try on the Nov. 8 ballot, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
Ting officials won’t say how many people it needs before deciding whether to move forward. But Centennial councilman and mayor pro tem Charles “C.J.” Whelan said he believes Ting wouldn’t have gotten this far without researching the demand.
About Mark Milliman
Mark Milliman is a Principal Consultant at Inphotonics Research driving the adoption and assisting local governments to plan, build, operate, and lease access open-access municipal broadband networks. Additionally, he works with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to increase the value of their intellectual capital through the creation of strategic product plans and execution of innovative marketing strategies. With more than 22 years of experience in the telecommunications industry that began at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Mark has built fiber, cable, and wireless networks around the world to deliver voice, video, and data services. His thorough knowledge of all aspects of service delivery from content creation to the design, operation, and management of the network is utilized by carriers and equipment manufacturers. Mark conceived and developed one of the industry's first multi-service provisioning platform and is multiple patent holder. He is active in the IEEE as a senior member. Mark received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
