Seattle Mulls Building Its Own Gigabit Fiber Network

Seattle is debating a $5 million test municipal fiber build that, if successful, could be expanded into a $480 million to $665 million gigabit fiber deployment to the entire city. For much of the last decade Seattle has explored the idea of building their own ultra-fast broadband network. Much of that motivation was fueled by the sub-standard service provided in the region by regional incumbents Qwest (now CenturyLink) and Comcast.

After scrapping several fiber plans and shutting down their Wi-Fi network, Seattle (and former Mayor Mike McGinn) tried to launch another effort with broadband consultant shop Gigabit Squared.

Unfortunately for Seattle residents that agreement also disappeared in a puff of hype after Gigabit Squared failed to pay the city money owed or do much of any work (something the firm was subsequently accused of in Illinois).

This latest municipal effort would involve deploying fiber to the city's North Beacon Hill neighborhood, something the city council is debating behind closed doors this week. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s office has said the kind of network city council members are debating is too expensive and risky.

But some grass roots advocates in the city, driven by a group named upgrade Seattle, say the hometown of Amazon and Microsoft can certainly afford it. As such they're pushing city council member Kshama Sawant to rally the five votes the proposal needs.

"When it comes to our utilities, equity shouldn't be something we need to negotiate with private business," argues the group. "Here in Seattle, we don't rely on for-profit companies to provide our water or electricity. The Internet shouldn't be any different."