Ashland, Oregon, home to Ashland Fiber Net (AFN), may soon be taking aggressive steps to bring more online business to the community. According to an Ashland Daily Tidings article, the City Council is seeking public input into proposed goals for the community. A targeted effort to bring more Internet-based businesses to town is one of the draft goals. The goal seems logical for a community with a network already in place.
AFN serves about 6,000 business and residential customers in this community of 20,000 people. In addition to AFN’s retail services, four other local ISPs operate on the infrastructure.
The network is HFC, a cable network, but with far fewer homes on each local loop than the big cable companies typically have. This means that subscribers are far more likely to consistently achieve advertised speeds. Residential services range from $35 per month for 6 Mbps / 1 Mbps service to $75 monthly for 20 Mbps / 5 Mbps. AFN is one of the rare community-owned networks to enforce monthly data caps.
Fiber to the business is an option, but popular business packages are $65 per month for 15 Mbps / 4 Mbps and $85 per month for 25 Mbps / 5 Mbps. AFN also offers rural wireless service to a limited area.
Ashland also sees some common sense advantages to increasing the number of small home based businesses that use its fiber resource. To that end, AFN provides a “Home Office” business Internet package. From the article:
Councilor Greg Lemhouse has championed the goal to increase the number of Internet-based businesses.
“It’s an aggressive goal that says the city is committed to growing this industry,” he said.
Lemhouse said many such businesses can be operated out of people’s homes.
People who want to run Internet-based businesses often are well educated and are committed to their communities, he said.
Home Internet businesses can also be family-friendly, allowing parents to work from home and stay connected to their children, Lemhouse said.
With the discussion also comes some analysis of what sort of Internet businesses are already keeping shop in town. Also from the article:
It’s not clear how many Internet-based businesses exist in Ashland.
Defining an Internet-based business can be tricky.
Some Ashland businesses rely completely on the Internet, while others use it to augment their businesses, said Katharine Flanagan, director of sales, marketing and Ashland’s Visitor Bureau for the Ashland Chamber of Commerce.
The majority of Ashland businesses now use the Internet as a main tool for business operations, she said. Some are like Blackstone Audio, an audio book company that has corporate-style office space but relies on the Internet to grow and enhance its business, Flanagan said.
Online e-commerce helps drive Ashland businesses like Yala, which sells everything from clothing to travel bedding, and Natura Health Products, a seller of vitamins and other health products, she said.