We last took a look at Palm Coast’s FiberNET over two years ago when Broadband Communities featured the open access fiber network along Florida’s upper east coast. Due to its initial focus on community anchor institutions and incremental build out, FiberNET serves as an outstanding example of how to justify a network investment with cost savings. We recently spoke with Courtney Violette who created the initial business plan for FiberNET under his previous role as Palm Coast’s CIO; he is now a Managing Partner with Magellan Advisors, an international broadband planning firm.
A presentation on the Palm Coast government website shows how FiberNET generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual cost savings for the City of Palm Coast, Flagler County School District and Florida Hospital. The data is impressive. The City of Palm Coast alone saves around $160,000 per year by switching to FiberNET for its networking needs.
Flagler County School District is likely the biggest beneficiary of cost savings in the community. Before FiberNET came onto the scene, the District paid Bright House Networks more than $500,000 per year for network services over a hybrid fiber-cable network. Now Flagler County School District pays around $300,000 for faster, more reliable services over FiberNET’s all-fiber network. These savings paid for the schools’ initial cost of connection after just one year.
Florida Hospital and its affiliates are also saving big. Affiliated doctors’ offices and clinics are required to maintain a 10-Mbps (minimum) connection with the hospital. Before FiberNET, these connections cost around $900 per month from the local incumbent. FiberNET now offers them for $250 per month. Similarly, the Hospital itself saves tens of thousands on its annual networking costs by switching to FiberNET.
It is worth noting these initial figures are conservative by not accounting for growing internal demand for high-speed networking. In other words, as these entities ramp up usage of faster network services available through FiberNET, their savings will grow accordingly. In fact, their savings will actually accelerate as they use services only available over fiber which the incumbent could not offer without incurring major upgrade costs.
With the network mostly built, expanding incrementally on a business case basis, FiberNET is now paying for itself in cost savings to the City and revenue from anchor institutions and businesses that previously paid much higher prices for slower services from the incumbent. Revenue has nearly doubled each year since 2010, reaching $522,940 in 2012, against expenses of $161,260. At this rate, FiberNET is expected to break even in less than six years.