The city of Williston, Florida is joining the ranks of municipalities across the nation that are building their own fiber broadband networks with an eye on ubiquitous, affordable access. City leaders say they’re preparing to launch a city-owned $4.6 million fiber optic ISP to break the local telecom monopoly logjam and finally provide fast, affordable access to the local populace.
Earlier this year the Williston city council voted unanimously on a $4.6 million loan to help fund a Williston Fiber network that will reach all 3,433 local residents. Last December, the city held a city council meeting to finalize the arrangement, construction of which had technically started last summer.
“They’re excited,” Williston Mayor Charles Goodman tells local ABC affiliate WCJB. “People are just chomping at the bit, ready for it. I deal with phone calls every day. ‘When is it ready? When is it going to be here? They’re putting it in front of my house, can I hook it up now?’, you know these kinds of things.”
“What I tell them is we’re just building the project,” he added. “It’s still under construction. We’re hoping to have everything done by the end of the year.”
Goodman has publicly expressed concern about the cost of the project, but local supporters, and all of the city council members, say the network is a necessary remedy to the lack of affordable, fast, and reliable broadband access, increasingly essential for online educational, health, employment, and other opportunities.
Like so many communities that explore municipal broadband access, Williston is largely dominated by a local cable monopoly (Comcast Xfinity), whose service area is sporadically peppered with aging DSL access from the regional phone monopoly (Centurylink, now Lumen).
This lack of meaningful competition results in high prices, spotty access, connection disruptions, and substandard customer service.
One local Williston survey conducted by Lit Communities in 2023 found that not only would almost 90 percent of the local populace switch to city-owned service, they’d be willing to pay a premium for faster, more reliable access.
That same survey found that 81 percent of Williston residents see broadband speeds below the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) standard definition of broadband, which at the time was an already-dated threshold of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream, 3 Mbps upstream.
Only 1.52 percent of speed tests conducted by city council had a download speed of 100Mbps or faster, which is the more modern definition of broadband access. There were zero successful local speed tests conducted at 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) downstream, now generally considered the gold standard for modern broadband access.
Municipal broadband tends to be an organic, frequently bipartisan, grass roots response to this sort of systemic market failure, and WIlliston is clearly no exception.
Five Year Plan For Better Access
The city initially didn’t have the funding to support community broadband, so leveraging a small grant from the Internet Society and Truist, city leaders first built out a small wireless trial they called COW-Link, which involved affixing local wireless access points to the town’s water tower.
As we’ve seen elsewhere, substandard connectivity for home education and telecommuting during peak COVID lockdowns lit a fire under the city to explore something far more ambitious.
“This service will be proudly owned and operated by the City of Williston,” the city’s website says of its dramatic expansion. “Williston Fiber will bring a revolution in internet service right to your doorstep. Say goodbye to buffering and slow downloads, and experience what it truly means to have Simply Better Internet.”
According to the city’s publicly-posted five-year business plan, the city hopes to see net positive cash flows for the network by the end of year one, and $1 million in cumulative net cash flow by the end of year 5. Those projections are based on conservative estimations of network adoption by the local frustrated userbase.
The Williston Fiber plan indicates that the city aims to offer up to gigabit access at somewhere between $50 and $75, significantly faster and cheaper than most incumbent broadband access. As we’ve seen elsewhere, municipal broadband generally results in regional providers improving network coverage and pricing in response.
Despite unanimous city council support and the proven track record of fiber, Williston’s Mayor continues to pepper local media with doubts that the city is doing the right thing, vaguely, and without evidence, suggesting that future technologies could somehow erode the city’s investment.
“Who knows what the technology is going to be in 20 years?” Goodman rhetorically asked one local media outlet. “We’re investing everything from our taxpayer in this project assuming that 20 years from now fiber is going to be the cat’s meow of technology.”
But Williston IT Director Aaron Mills has spent much of the last year pointing out that affordable fiber will be transformative for locals long trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.
“Without fast internet you can’t learn and you can’t work from home,” Mills said last year. “You can’t build a business. Once completed, every resident and business owner will have a better, faster, reliable, internet option.
“We’re talking gigabit speeds for $49.99 a month. Williston Fiber will mean more economic growth and new opportunities, driving our community forward.”
The city fiber website outlines the existing planned target area, and encourages locals to express their interest in the fledgling network by pre-registering for access.