SANDY — If you're looking for a low-cost Internet connection capable of downloading content at the speed of light, keep dreaming.

Or move to

.

With the debut of

, the rural Clackamas County community is poised to become the technological envy of the Portland area, offering faster, cheaper service than consumers usually get from private companies.

Sandy plans to run the system as a break-even utility, with residents and businesses paying only what it costs to build and operate the system. To keep service costs low, the city will issue low-interest municipal bonds to cover up-front costs and spread the payback over 30 years.

"We're not trying to make a bunch of money here," said Scott Lazenby, Sandy City Manager.

If all goes as planned, Sandy's network, which will run through

, will attract businesses and ready residents for the technological future, all without taxing city finances.

The city's first customers could start receiving service by the end of the year.

Paying for Speed

Here's a sampling of what some Portland-area Internet providers charge per month for various download speeds, plus the estimated time to download a 3 gigabyte high-definition movie. Rates can vary by location.

Comcast

1.5 mbps; $26.95; 300 minutes

6 mbps; $49.95; 70 minutes

50 mbps; $99.95; 8 minutes

105 mbps; $199.95; 4 minutes

SandyNet

5mbps; $29.95*; 80 minutes

SandyNet with fiber

100mbps; $40; 4 minutes*

Verizon

15 mbps; $49.99; 27 minutes

150 mbps; $199.99; 2 minutes

Wave Broadband

3 mbps; $39.95; 150 minutes

10 mbps; $54.95; 42 minutes

50 mbps; $124.95; 8 minutes

*Sandy plans to begin offering high-speed fiber-optic service by the end of the year.

Mark Bergquist, 54, said he and his daughter, Sarah, 28, who also lives in Sandy, can't wait for the service to reach their homes. Now, Bergquist said, he pays $20 a month for a download speed of about 5 megabits per second, which can be frustratingly slow. He began uploading his files to an Internet-based back-up system in April, and it's still not done.

"Who wouldn't be excited?" Bergquist said. Fiber-optic broadband "is pretty much the ultimate."

Sandy plans to offer Internet speeds of 100 megabits per second at about $40 a month — a fifth of what private providers currently charge for similar speeds.

"As a practical matter," Lazenby said, "our network will be faster than most of the Internet itself."

Officials hope to connect the entire city of 9,500 within the decade.

In June, the

, including housing developments, to install underground fiber along with other utilities, such as sewer and water. That doesn't mean they all have to use the fiber network, Lazenby said. It simply means they'll have the option.

"The beauty of these fiber systems is that they're really low-maintenance," Lazenby said. "The equipment is reliable, and the stuff is underground."

A rare approach

City-run fiber networks like the one Sandy plans are still rare in the United States, though the concentration is much greater in some European and Asian countries.

, the Fiber to the Home Council counted about 60 U.S. cities that run municipal fiber-to-home networks.

In Oregon, Monmouth and Independence joined forces in 2004 to create

that was received warmly by residents. Of about 7,300 homes connected to the system, Monmouth City Manager Scott McClure said, and about 6,900 subscribe to Internet, cable, phone or a combination. The cities are on track to pay off loans using subscriber fees by about 2040, McClure said.

Ashland also has a fiber-optic network, primarily for businesses, and other Oregon cities also have limited fiber networks to serve dense patches of government or business offices.

In 2007, the city of Portland funded a study to explore a city-built network, but the project would have cost $500 million,

. Now, Portland is drafting a

to explore ways to fulfill the city's technological goals.

'Future-proof'

Fiber-optic networks transmit data by pulsing light through strands of glass so thin that a bundle of hundreds of fibers would barely be as thick as a human hair. The networks come in "middle-mile" or "last-mile" systems.

Middle-mile systems work like the hub and spokes of a wheel. The hub is the fiber-optic network, and the spokes are the coaxial cables connecting buildings to the network. Because users do not have designated connections to the fiber-optic network, they compete for bandwidth, or data transfer capacity. In last-mile systems — the kind Sandy plans — each home or business has its own piece of fiber connected to the loop, eliminating competition for bandwidth.

Sandy's system will also be open-access, meaning private companies will be able to provide additional services through the city's fiber network.

According to David St. John of the Washington, D.C.-based

, fiber is crucial because technology will soon begin to outgrow current bandwidth standards.

"If we ever go to 3D hologram phones where your mother-in-law is in the room with you even though she's 1,000 miles away, it's technically feasible without having to dig up the fiber," St. John said. "It's pretty much future-proof for decades."

Seven years ago, St. John said, no one was watching videos online. Now, it's not uncommon for each member of a family to be in a different room, eating up bandwidth with televisions, laptops, gaming systems and smartphones.

"It's not going to stop," St. John said. "It's going to accelerate."

So far, Sandy residents seem solidly behind the project. In

, one resident wrote, "I am so proud to be part of a city that is this forward thinking."

Another simply replied "PLEEEEEAAAASE!!"

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