Rocket Fiber is expanding its reach from downtown into Detroit's affluent suburbs, inking a deal with Grosse Pointe schools to build a $2 million fiber network that will allow the internet service provider to start offering residential and commercial service in Wayne County's wealthiest communities.

Grosse Pointe's school board approved a contract last month for the Dan Gilbert-owned Rocket Fiber to string 14 miles of dark fiberoptic cable along existing utility poles throughout the Grosse Pointe communities to connect 12 school buildings.

Rocket Fiber has agreed to provide the Grosse Pointe Public School District with free internet access for 15 years and free maintenance on the network for 20 years in exchange for building excess capacity that the company can use to get a foothold into internet service business in Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Farms, the Park, the Woods and the Shores.

"It helps Rocket Fiber grow," Rocket Fiber CEO and co-founder Marc Hudson said in an interview with Crain's.

Rocket Fiber was the low bidder to build and service a 10-gigabit fiber network that the school district will own, Grosse Pointe schools Superintendent Gary Niehaus said.

The free internet service will relieve the district of its $212,000 annual Comcast bill, which has reached $268,000 some years and would have grown with the district's increasing bandwidth demands, Niehaus said.

"They proposed a very creative contract," Niehaus said of Rocket Fiber.

Grosse Pointe schools currently use about 2.5 gigabits of internet bandwidth. But the district is in the midst of $18.5 million in technology improvements in its buildings that include adding more devices requiring internet access, Niehaus said.

"If we're going to invest $18.5 million in infrastructure in our school buildings, we want to make sure we have the bandwidth to be able to carry on," he said.

Rocket Fiber plans to install more than double the amount of fiber optic cable the Grosse Pointe school district needs.

The company will string sheaths of fiber optic cable with 144 strands of fiber; the district is buying 60 of the strands, according to a contract approved by Grosse Pointe Board of Education last month.

The $2.09 million total construction cost includes $412,564 for a connection to Macomb Community College and $355,261 for a connection to Wayne State University to light the fiber, according to school district records.

Grosse Pointe school leaders had no qualms with Rocket Fiber's stipulation that the company be allowed to piggy-back on the new fiber network to break into the broadband market in the Grosse Pointes.

"I think most people prefer, or would like to have, competition," Niehaus said.