The proposed network would serve Gainesville and the surrounding area.

A city-commissioned survey of Gainesville residents has found current internet service leaves much to be desired, says a consultant. But city leaders may try to change that.

The Digital Access Committee, a city commission subcommittee that’s been looking into ways to expand affordable internet service, met Monday afternoon to discuss the results of a study that explored the feasibility of building a city-owned fiber broadband network.

The proposed network would serve Gainesville and the surrounding area.

Plans to commission the study were set at the November 2017 meeting with a budget of $120,000 to $140,000. Nine meetings later, the study by CCG Consulting, a North Carolina-based telecommunications consulting firm, was complete.

The study covered engineering and construction costs and how much it would cost to pay workers to maintain services. It also included a survey that was sent randomly to Gainesville residents and those in surrounding areas based on Gainesville Regional Utilities billing records to determine interest in city-provided internet service. The study has not been given to the committee or the city commission.

Doug Dawson, CCG’s president, discussed the study’s preliminary findings via conference call at Monday’s meeting.

He said 49% of survey respondents — he did not specify how many residents responded — would be interested in buying internet services, if the city offered it. Fifty-six percent of survey respondents said they would consider buying one gigabit from their internet service provider at the cost of $50 per month, a figure the study suggests the city could provide service for without losing money.

CCG’s cost estimate for the project started at $98 million to service within Gainesville limits but could easily rise to $197 million if surrounding areas are included.

“The trouble with this model is if you don’t get the customers, it could go south in a hurry,” said Dawson, who based his analysis on a 48 percent penetration rate of customers after five years of service. (That means the city would need to have at least 48 percent of the customers the fiber network could accommodate.)

Though Dawson warned there are a lot of variables that could affect the overall cost, he said his firm “feels pretty good about the numbers.”

Survey respondents and other area residents were asked to participate in a voluntary speed test of their current internet service.

According to the results, about half of Cox Communications customers who volunteered to participate were getting faster internet than they subscribed for, but half saw lower speeds.

“Some of them were tremendously lower,” said Dawson. “That probably means they should be calling customer service and not taking the speed test.”

Gainesville resident Trevor Heald is a Cox Communications internet customer.

“I feel like they’re overpriced, but pretty much every provider is. They kind of have a monopoly on it,” Heald said. He said if there were other choices available, he would consider a switch.

Commissioner Harvey Ward is familiar with the complaints about Cox Communications, the area’s largest internet service provider.

“They have the lowest customer satisfaction rate in Gainesville, lower than GRU,” said Ward. “If they wanted to fix it, they would have fixed it.”

Cox Communications spokesman Cam Johnson said in an email Friday that he had could not comment without having seen the study.

A full presentation on the study is expected at the May 13 Digital Access Committee meeting.