A startup has told Los Angeles city officials that it wants to build a citywide fiber-to-the-home broadband network and that it also hopes to build nationwide Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

The proposal sounds unlikely to succeed, but it's certainly ambitious. It comes in response to a Los Angeles city government request for information (RFI) regarding a plan to build a fiber and Wi-Fi network. The Los Angeles request itself struck telecom experts as unrealistic. The city wants a vendor to build a fiber network at an estimated cost of $3 billion to $5 billion, offer free Internet to all residents (while charging for faster speeds), and make the infrastructure available to any other service provider on a wholesale basis.

The RFI deadline passed Friday, and only one company has made its full response to the city public. It's a Dutch company called Angie Communications, which claims it will build fiber and mobile networks in the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, France, and the US.

You can read Angie's 18-page response to LA here. The company says it will cost $2.5 billion to reach the break-even point in its plans, which "will mainly come from investors, suppliers and builders." The "lifetime" cost of Angie's nationwide network is estimated at a whopping $70 billion.

Angie says it has €50 million ($67.6 million) from investors, which isn't enough to get started on building. That money "will be used by the Company from November 2014 onwards to pay for initial operations (salaries, retail operations, marketing, etc.) in its markets as well as to raise funds by way of a six-month road show."

Angie says it would build the entire LA fiber network, "including the backbone, the metro and street access infrastructure," within five years. Speeds would hit 1Gbps or 10Gbps and not be limited to Los Angeles. Angie wants its fiber to pass "at least five (5) million premises (homes, offices, businesses) nationwide in its own 'rolled out' markets." Angie last year said it would build fiber in San Jose.

The company also told Los Angeles that it wants to build a 4G cellular network "covering 95 percent of the nation's population" with speeds of 10Mbps to 50Mbps. "Angie Mobile will build, own and operate its own 4G network to serve as a brand-new Mobile Network Operator," the company said.

The plan also includes a Wi-Fi network covering 90 percent of the US population with speeds up to 100Mbps. Might as well dream big, right?

We tried to talk to Angie CEO Neal Lachman, but he said, "Sorry, we're not interested in discussing details."

Los Angeles officials will want to scrutinize Angie's promises carefully. As we've written before, there are reasons why the US broadband market has so little competition. Funding new networks in cities that already have providers is hard for investors to justify because it takes years to gain enough customers to reach profitability.

Besides that, Angie apparently doesn't want to sell wholesale access to other providers. "Angie is in the business of building infrastructure in order to own and operate those infrastructures itself," the company said. "It may be economically unattractive (in terms of probability to recoup investments) for Angie to provide access to third parties. Nonetheless, providing such access on a wholesale or white label basis (at the operator and/or access level) is something that Angie is willing to discuss with a select group only. NOTE: If Angie would be required to provide open access from day one, Angie would most certainly pass on the opportunity."

Time Warner Cable says it’s on track for gigabit speeds

Angie was one of 34 entities who responded to LA's RFI, but that doesn't mean all of them want to build a network. The city will issue a request for proposals (RFP) later on. The RFI asked for input on the project to help draft the future RFP.

Seven of the responses to the RFI came from city departments, while three came from neighborhood councils. About half of the responses came from private companies. These were: IBM; PHI Technologies Corp.; Nexius; Alcatel-Lucent; Macquarie Capital USA, Inc.; Time Warner Cable; Angie Communications; Praxis Associates; Global Sky Networks; Intelligent Wireless Networks; WiFi Wireless Inc. and Ericsson; Crown Castle USA Inc.; AT&T; EnerSphere; Wilcon; and P3 Global Management.

The city is not revealing the contents of any responses "until after the RFP is released and contract[s] are awarded," Los Angeles CTO Steve Reneker told Ars.

Time Warner Cable didn't reveal its full response to LA but issued a press release saying that it gave LA officials "information on its current and future network and product enhancements that will enable Time Warner Cable to deliver gigabit-per-second speeds for consumers in Los Angeles across TWC’s existing network that already spans the city and neighboring communities."