Most cities and towns that build their own broadband networks do so to solve a single problem: that residents and businesses aren't being adequately served by private cable companies and telcos.

But there's more than one way to create a network and offer service, and the city of Ammon, Idaho, is deploying a model that's worth examining. Ammon has built an open access network that lets multiple private ISPs offer service to customers over city-owned fiber. The wholesale model in itself isn't unprecedented, but Ammon has also built a system in which residents will be able to sign up for an ISP—or switch ISPs if they are dissatisfied—almost instantly, just by visiting a city-operated website and without changing any equipment.

Ammon has completed a pilot project involving 12 homes and is getting ready for construction to another 200 homes. Eventually, the city wants to wire up all of its 4,500 homes and apartment buildings, city Technology Director Bruce Patterson told Ars. Ammon has already deployed fiber to businesses in the city, and it did so without raising everybody's taxes.

Patterson gave Ars a rundown of how the network was built and a demo of the Web portal customers will use to purchase service. You can also watch this video report on the network produced by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR):



Residents will get a gateway provided by the city. When they hook it up and try to surf the Web, they will be taken to the portal where they can select an ISP—very much like using the Internet in a hotel.

From that point, residents will scan the available Internet offers, purchase one, and get hooked up immediately. They could even buy two different Internet services, which might be useful for a family where a parent works at home and wants a single broadband line for a home office and a second broadband service for the rest of the home. The gateways designed by Ammon run Linux on x86 chips and use virtual switches to hook customers up to an ISP. They have four network ports, and each one can be used to connect to a different service.

"You can switch [ISPs] as quickly as you could uninstall and reinstall an app; it literally takes about five seconds," Patterson said.

Municipal broadband advocate Christopher Mitchell, director of the ILSR's Community Broadband Networks project, told Ars that he has never before seen anything like Ammon's ISP sign-up portal.

The whole project—including building the network—was a lot of work, but "in our opinion the risk to the city is really nothing," Patterson said. "We create the fiber utility, we maintain it and keep it lit for the residents, we bring the providers into that system and allow the residents to deal with them directly."

How and why the network was built

It all began about seven years ago when the city government, suffering from horrible upload speeds, wanted a dedicated 100Mbps circuit between City Hall and the Public Works building, less than a mile apart. Qwest (now CenturyLink) didn't want the project, while Cable One offered to do it for a start-up fee of $80,000 plus $1,000 a month, Patterson said.

Ammon is "a very conservative community," so creating a fiber network instead of relying solely on the private sector is not something city officials were about to do lightly, Mayor Dana Kirkham said in the video. But city officials soon figured out that they could do the initial project themselves for just $22,000 and that they could also bring Internet access to government buildings and businesses, improving the city's ability to compete in a high-tech world in a fiscally responsible manner.

Today, Ammon has about 30 miles of fiber, connecting public and private schools, other government buildings, and about 40 businesses. Business owners pay an up-front charge, usually a few thousand dollars, for construction, and then purchase Internet access from one of the ISPs that offers service over the network. Phone service is also available to businesses. The ISPs in turn pay the city to use its fiber and also pay Internet backbone providers for connectivity to the rest of the Internet.

"We were able to come in, use their fiber where it traditionally would have cost us quite a bit to do our own infrastructure, so time to market was much quicker. It gives us access to the customers that they're already doing business with," Barbara Sessions, director of engineering and operations at Silver Star Communications, said in the ILSR video.

CEO Jared Stowell of Fybercom, another ISP using Ammon's network, doesn't mind the competition enabled by the open access model. "We like the competition," he said. "It keeps us on top of the game so we can continue to provide a superior product and no one gets lackadaisical."

What about Ammon's costs? The city government broke even within three years and is now operating in the black, Kirkham said. The city has no debt related to the fiber construction.

From businesses to homes

Ammon is just now starting to offer Internet access to residents, but homeowners don't have to pay thousands of dollars up front.

Ammon is using a model similar to Google Fiber's "Fiberhoods," in which construction happens first in communities where lots of residents commit to buying service. Those who opt in will pay a tax assessment of about $10 to $15 a month (roughly $3,000 over 20 years), plus a utility fee of $16.50 a month. This is optional: homeowners who want nothing to do with the network don't have to opt in. They can also opt out later on, though they would lose access to the fiber network unless they sign up again.

In addition to the tax and fee, customers would purchase Internet service from the private companies that buy access from Ammon. A symmetrical 100Mbps connection will usually cost about $25 to $30 a month, Patterson said. Service of 20Mbps would typically be about $15 a month, he said.

Data isn't necessarily unlimited, but customers should be able to get a better deal by opting for a plan with monthly data limits, Patterson said. There will be no contracts for residential service, and because customers will have choices and a convenient means of switching providers, the ISPs will have to compete to provide the best deals.

The city is financing construction with low-interest bonds. If 50 percent of residents accept service in a given area, the numbers make sense, Patterson said. Ammon is seeing acceptance rates of 70 percent in some neighborhoods.

Homeowners who don't sign up initially will be able to get onto the network later, but they'll have to pay a little more than people who signed up at the start, Patterson said. During construction, Ammon will run fiber past all homes in any given area; adding a home to the network after will just involve running fiber through the yard.

The website where residents will be able to choose a service wasn't ready for the 12-home pilot project last fall, but it is up and running now. Construction for the next 200 homes is expected to begin in July, with service available in September if all goes well. Patterson is optimistic that Ammon will have the network built throughout most of the city within three years.

There are six ISPs offering service to businesses over the open access network, but not all are interested in selling to residents. Still, Patterson said he expects to have three ISPs available to residents at launch. The Web portal for choosing from different ISPs will initially be available only to residents, but Ammon plans to make it available to business customers later.

There will be a free Internet option, offering 25Mbps speeds in 45-minute sessions, likely with a monthly data cap. This is mainly designed for families that fall on hard times and suddenly can't afford service. As it's a utility, people should be able to apply for jobs online and have their kids do homework even when money is tight, Patterson said.

TV and phone service will not be available to residents over the Ammon network at first, because there won't be enough scale to make it worthwhile for ISPs, Patterson said. That could be added in the future, and residents can still buy service from the traditional cable TV and phone companies. Patterson pointed out that residents could also get voice calling from VoIP providers like Ooma and Vonage.

Currently, Ammon's gateways do not have built-in Wi-Fi capabilities, so customers will have to use their own wireless routers. But Patterson said Ammon is working on adding wireless capabilities to the city-provided device.

The gateways do let residents establish private connections between their homes using an empty port.

"We create a virtual connection that acts like a network cable," Patterson said. Two users of the network could thus transfer files at gigabit speed, or residents of a few houses could set up a private gaming network.

Naturally, Ammon has monitoring systems and alarms set up to let network managers know if a cable has been tampered with or if a line goes down. "If fiber goes down for two seconds, we know," Patterson said.