At long last, fiber-to-the-home connectivity is coming to Cape Cod.
Gateway Fiber, a Missouri-based Internet service provider already operating in western and central Massachusetts, has announced it has begun network construction in Falmouth and says service will be available to residents and businesses later this year.
It’s a development that, after decades of frustration with high prices for cable service, will bring residential fiber connectivity to the region for the first time, initiated seven years ago by an effort to build a community-owned solution.
While the plan is for Gateway to first offer service in Falmouth, the company also has its sights set on expanding its network into other towns on the Cape — including the towns of Barnstable and Yarmouth, the most populous parts of the peninsula.
For years, Cape residents have complained about the high-priced, spotty service of the Comcast cable monopoly as their only wireline option. Enter Gateway. It represents a watershed moment for the region, as the ISP looks to tap the pent-up demand for the gold-standard of Internet access technologies (fiber) by first targeting Falmouth, home to about 33,000 residents.
“Cape Cod is exactly the kind of market we’re excited about at Gateway Fiber. It has strong local communities, year-round residents, small businesses, seasonal homeowners and visitors who all need Internet they can count on,” said John Meyer, Chief Customer Officer of Gateway Fiber.
“We believe people on the Cape deserve a better Internet experience that includes 100% fiber, straightforward pricing and service from a team that wants to be part of the communities we serve. We’ve built real momentum across Massachusetts, and we’re excited to bring that same commitment to Cape Cod,” he added.
Courtney Bird, Chair of the Falmouth Broadband Municipal Light Plant (MLP), also expressed his excitement that long sought-after next-generation Internet service is finally coming to town.
“I’m thrilled that Gateway Fiber is coming to Falmouth,” he said. “This milestone reflects a seven-year effort by everyone who worked to bring the community a viable, competitive alternative for 21st-century connectivity. Gateway Fiber will provide that choice, and Falmouth residents and businesses will benefit.”
Why Falmouth Didn’t Build Its Own Network
That effort took a significant step forward in 2022 when Town Meeting voters approved the creation of the town’s Municipal Light Plant (MLP), establishing the legal framework to create a municipal telecommunication utility in the Commonwealth. Town Meeting voters overwhelmingly approved the MLP, easily surpassing the two-thirds majority needed at two separate Town Meetings.
Early organizers of the citizen-led FalmouthNet nonprofit were initially hoping to create a municipal broadband service, whereby the town builds and owns the network and has complete control over pricing and service levels.
But, with little interest from the Board of Selectmen to finance what at the time was an estimated $55 million project, MLP officials eventually settled on pursuing a public-private partnership.
“The funding was the thing that stuck in everyone’s craw,” Bird tells ILSR.
Also, he said, a feasibility study indicated that the “break-even point was projected to be five years and would need a 45 percent take rate. The town took no interest in funding it, even though surveys showed plenty of appetite.”
And while the MLP did court and meet with several private ISPs — including GoNetSpeed, Ripple and Gateway — the result, Bird said, wasn’t a typical public-private partnership.
“Public private partnership implies there will be a financial contribution by both parties, which isn’t the case here. The Town is putting up no money, just expediting the permitting process and being generally supportive of (Gateway’s) efforts,” he said.
Still, Bird considered the efforts of FalmouthNet and the MLP to be a net positive for Falmouth.
Based on what Gateway shared with the MLP at previous MLP meetings, most addresses in town will get fiber access, though “there will be parts of Falmouth that don’t get it. They mentioned covering something like 80 to 85 percent of the town and did say they didn’t plan to build in certain neighborhoods.”
ISPs often selectively deploy high-speed Internet infrastructure, which industry-insiders refer to as “cherry-picking” or “digital redlining,” depending on their business model. That contrasts with municipal broadband systems that almost always build out network connections across the entire municipality as publicly-owned networks have different incentives in providing broadband, treating the service as a utility rather than as a pure profit-seeking venture.
Ultimately, however, “I think Gateway will be a good fit for Falmouth,” Bird said, adding that there is a planned ribbon-cutting ceremony for network construction on October 27.
OpenCape: The (Fiber) Bridge To Next-Gen Internet Access
A major reason why Gateway Fiber is able to be a “good fit” is because of OpenCape’s middle mile fiber network.
Much like the Sagamore and Bourne bridges serve as the gateway to Cape Cod for vehicle traffic, the nonprofit fiber network is the bridge that Gateway Fiber will use for backhaul.
“OpenCape has laid an important foundation for connectivity across Cape Cod, and we’re excited to build on that investment,” Gateway Fiber CEO Chris Surdo said about OpenCape’s network, which spans more than 500 route miles across Cape Cod, southeastern Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, with direct Tier 1 connections into Boston and Providence.
OpenCape CEO Pete Saldino tells ILSR that OpenCape is excited to work with Gateway Fiber, especially because when OpenCape was founded in 2007 thanks to a federal BTOP grant, the hope for many at that time was that it would eventually lead to residential fiber service across OpenCape’s service footprint.
Saldino noted how OpenCape was built as an open-access network for the region, in part to eventually foster choice and competition by reducing the cost of building out last-mile fiber networks.
Over the years, the network has been the primary backhaul for cellular service providers in the area, as well as the go-to fiber provider for many of the region’s small businesses, municipalities, and large anchor institutions such as the marine biology research labs in Woods Hole and the Cape Cod Healthcare system.
Now, Saldino said, he is excited to see “Gateway Fiber bringing real momentum and investment to Cape Cod, and we’re thrilled that our state-of-the-art fiber optic network is helping bring faster
connections to homeowners across the region.”
Competition Is Already Paying Off
In Falmouth, Bird said Gateway’s entry into the market has already had a positive impact for residents.
“Comcast has upgraded their services and I can speak to this first hand. I was paying $120 a month for gig service and now they are offering it for $50 a month for new customers,” he said. “So I went into the Xfinity store in Falmouth and complained about it and they upgraded me to 2 gigs for $95 a month and gave me the modem at no charge.”
“In my view,” Bird said, “this is a perfect example of the consumer benefiting from competition. When Comcast was the only show in town, you paid whatever rate they charged and had to rent the modem, and that was it.”
But, given the fact that Comcast is working to upgrade their service in town due to the competitive pressure from Gateway, Bird thinks Gateway will still have to work hard to lure subscribers away from Comcast.
“It’s a challenge for any new provider to get people to switch. As for me, if fiber comes down my street — bye bye Comcast.”
Pricing and service tiers for Falmouth have not yet been announced. But, in other areas where Gateway operates, the company offers a symmetrical 600 Megabits per second (Mbps) connection for $65/month; gig speed service for $75/month; a 2 gig package for $90/month; and a 5 gig tier for $125/month.
As for the future of the town’s MLP board, Bird said now that Gateway is coming to town “our role will be a liaison and coordinator for the construction while it’s going on. But once Gateway completes it, I would not envision a role for us.”
Meanwhile, Falmouth residents and businesses can visit gatewayfiber.com/pre-order to pre-order service, receive construction updates, and find out when fiber service will be available at their address.
*Full disclosure: Sean Gonsalves serves as a board member of OpenCape and was a former advisory board member of FalmouthNet