There's more than meets the eye to Rock Ventures LLC's plans to install fiber-optic cable to provide ultrafast Internet access in downtown Detroit and Midtown.

In addition to the upcoming rollout of gigabit-speed Internet, which made headlines last week, Rock Ventures' new company,, also wants to:

Open a retail electronics store in downtown Detroit.

Launch a training center to help bridge the digital divide by teaching computer and Internet literacy.

Become another provider of cable television in the city. Rocket Fiber is preparing a proposed cable-franchise agreement for approval by the Detroit City Council. No city, state or federal approvals are needed to provide the internet service.

Rocket Fiber plans in several months to move into about 5,000 square feet of space at 1505 Woodward, one of Dan Gilbert's buildings, after the building's reconstruction is finished.

The electronics store and training center may share a location with each other or be in separate buildings, said Rocket Fiber CEO Marc Hudson, who hopes to have them open in the second half of this year.

The concept of the training center is still being developed. Hudson envisions it as a community gathering space with a combination of training and meetings. It will not compete with Grand Circus, one of Gilbert's for-profit family of companies that offers IT classes and computer-coding boot camps.

Gilbert and Rock Ventures have internally financed the $30 million cost of the first phase of Rocket Fiber's plans, the heart of which is the underground installation of 5.5 miles of fiber-optic cable around the central business district, which is nearly complete.

The area that will be served by that cable, which will provide data at a gigabit per second, about 100 times faster than traditional residential Internet, is bounded by the Lodge Freeway to the west, I-75 to the north, I-375 to the east and the Detroit River to the south.

Shorter fiber cables will run from the main cable into both residential and commercial buildings of property owners who enter into an easement agreement.

Deb Dansby, a Rock Ventures' vice president, said Rock Ventures welcomes investment by venture capitalists or private equity firms to help pay for the continued rollout.

"The total dollar figures continue to morph," she said. "On the investment piece, we're absolutely looking to get folks participating, but we haven't yet reached out to anyone."

Rocket Fiber hopes to begin offering residential Internet in the central business district in the fourth quarter this year for $70 a month. Prices for and online high-definition TV have not been finalized.

Carolyn Artman, senior public relations manager for Rock Ventures, said prices for businesses and institutions are still to be determined.

In 2016, the next phase will extend the fiber-optic cable through Midtown, with a combination of underground installation and above-ground installation on telephone poles, according to Hudson.

Expansion into the neighborhoods is scheduled to start in 2017.

According to a report last August by Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai Technologies Inc., Virginia had the highest average Internet speed at 13.7 megabits a second, with Michigan No. 9 at 11.8 a second and Alaska last at seven a second.

According to figures provided by Rocket Fiber, the download time for a "Star Wars" movie on Blu-ray is about seven hours at a typical residential Internet speed of 10 megabits per second. It will take about four and a half minutes at gigabit speed.

Using a smaller file-size example, a user can download an album on iTunes in about one minute with traditional service — and in less than a second at gigabit speed.