Man who built his own broadband to avoid pricey bills gets £2.1m from government

Posted on : August 11, 2022

A rural American man has been awarded £2.1 million ($2.6m) to expand the broadband ISP he built in his back garden.

Jared Mauch, a network architect, set up his own fibre broadband provider after being slapped with a £40,000 bill by Comcast to extend their Internet access to his property.

Mauch was sick of having slow internet speeds of 1.5Mbps at rip-off rates so began building the ISP (Internet Service Provider) on his land around five years ago.

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Since hooking up around 70 of his rural neighbours to the network last year, he has now secured the millions of dollars in grant money to serve an additional 600 homes.

The company started with just one customer—himself—but rapidly grew after his fed-up neighbours signed up. Mauch will now be able to expand his network with an extra 38 miles of fibre broadband.

Instead of paying tons of money for dreadfully slow Internet, his customers can sign up to 100Mbps and unlimited data for £44 ($55) per month.

Mauch said he "had to start a telephone company to get [high-speed] Internet" at his house after the main American broadband companies never extended their fast networks to his area.

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He even asked the Internet giant Comcast to extend their network to him but they quoted him $50,000 (£40,000) to do so.

"If they had priced it at $10,000, I would have written them a cheque," he told ArsTechnica.

"It was so high at $50,000 that it made me consider if this is worthwhile. Why would I pay them to expand their network if I get nothing back out of it."

If you're thinking of building your own ISP or energy provider to avoid the skyrocketing bills this winter though, you might want to think again. Mauch was able to build his company, Washtenaw Fiber Properties, because he works as a network engineer in his day job.

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