Macquarie has let their proposal out and it looks like they’re planning to make good on many of the rumored details. There’s also a number of very attractive points that will make this an easy sell for new cities to join. Some highlights:

The network build will be done in existing pledging UTOPIA cities in 30 months.

The fee will be $18-20 per month per subscriber address with a 50% discount for MDUs and a 100% premium for businesses. This amount will be indexed.

address with a 50% discount for MDUs and a 100% premium for businesses. This amount will be indexed. Utility fees will have a grace period of 6 months from construction to allow ISPs to hook people up.

The free tier of service will be 3Mbps symmetrical with a 20GB monthly cap. All service providers must agree to offer it as a condition of being on the network.

Cities stand to earn between $1.0B and $1.5B depending on the take rate. That’s 2-3 times the existing debt service. On the low end, it would drop the Macquarie fees by almost half. On the high end, it could almost entirely cover the Macquarie fee.

Speaking of revenues, the cities stand to rake in another $100M annually when the network reverts to their control in 30 years.

Macquarie will be aggressively promoting the network and intends to extend it to any city that wants to accept its terms. Cities without existing debt service may end up making a good bit of money on the deal.

The worst case scenario is that it is a wash with what they have now except the network gets completed and everyone gets free service. In the best case scenario (which I still this is a little too conservative), they end up paying almost nothing for the network. I’ll just come out at say it: any city council that doesn’t move forward on this deal is committing an act of deliberate and malicious fiscal malfeasance against their city and its citizens.

Macquarie has already presented this information in Utah County and will be presenting again Wednesday April 30 at 7PM at Layton City Hall and Thursday May 1 at 8PM at West Valley City Hall. Show up and make sure the cities know you want this deal to happen.