Fort Collins Connexion faced construction and back-end delays that resulted in low revenue for 2019, but the municipal broadband utility plans to ramp up construction and home and business installations by the end of April.

Connexion’s first quarterly report, released April 10, includes new information about finances, construction and TV pricing. Officials released the report after Fort Collins City Council members asked for more transparency about the network's progress.

Fort Collins is funding Connexion with $142 million in bonds, which the city plans to repay with subscriber revenue. The network buildout is expected to take until 2022 or 2023. Residential pricing for gig-speed internet is set at $60 per month plus $10 monthly for WiFi, and customers can bundle internet with landline phone service.

Here are key takeaways from Connexion’s first quarterly report.

Connexion made less money and spent less money than budgeted for 2019.

Connexion’s 2019 budget projected revenues of about $387,600, but the utility ended up taking in about $11,350. On the other hand, Connexion projected its operating expenses would top $3.88 million in 2019, but they ended up at about $2.2 million. The disparities reflect a slower ramp-up than Connexion had initially planned.

“The Connexion budget included an aggressive launch schedule,” the report read. “However, the Connexion team intentionally used a controlled release approach for launch to ensure processes and procedures were in place before full ramp-up.”

The report added that delays with Open Smart Flex billing, the new system the city is creating to integrate Connexion billing with all other city utility bills, and a historically difficult winter in Fort Collins contributed to the slow start-up.

The utility has spent about 28% of its capital budget of $118.2 million, which is on target, according to the report.

The report didn’t say how many customers Connexion is billing. Coloradoan open records requests found that Connexion had completed about 300 home internet installations as of early March since connecting its first customers in August 2019. The network needs roughly a 28% take rate to succeed, which for residential service would mean about 19,700 households at buildout.

Connexion is continuing construction and installations during the coronavirus outbreak.

The Colorado and Larimer County stay-at-home orders designate public works, utilities, infrastructure construction and telecommunications support as falling under the “essential services” umbrella, so Connexion can continue its rollout during the coronavirus outbreak as long as crews are available. The report noted the utility worked with vendors to ensure that staff are practicing social distancing. They’re planning to ramp up crews for more fiber construction and home and business connections by the end of April.

Crews have installed about 113 miles of fiber, more than 1,700 vaults and 2,900 flowerpots as of March 20. Underground fiber in each fiber distribution hub connects to about 225 homes through vaults and flowerpots, with each flowerpot serving two homes. When a customer signs up for Connexion service, workers run fiber from a flowerpot to the side of their house.

Connexion posted TV pricing.

TV service isn’t available yet because Connexion is waiting on content providers to authorize contracts for some channels. But the quarterly report included some details about TV service, including pricing. There will be three packages available: bronze ($29.95 a month), silver ($59.95 a month) and gold ($79.95 a month). Premium channels, sports and Spanish language packages will be available, along with 100 hours of cloud DVR storage and five simultaneous streams included.

The report also included small business pricing. Businesses can choose between 250 megabits-per-second for $99.95 a month, 500 megabits-per-second for $199.95 a month and 1 gigabit-per-second for $399.95 a month.

Jacy Marmaduke covers government accountability for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @jacymarmaduke. Support stories like this one by purchasing a digital subscription to the Coloradoan.​​​​​​​