Spanish Fork, Utah, was recently highlighted in a promotional video touting the successes of its municipal Internet service. The video, produced by the trade group Internet Association, is all about economic development and growth — something this community of nearly 40,000 has seen since the municipality introduced the service back in 2001, and then subsequently upgraded to fiber.
As the mayor of Spanish Fork notes in the video, before the municipality established its own network, incumbent providers wouldn’t invest in broadband infrastructure in the city. Inadequate Internet access would have pushed out businesses in the community. A number of small business owners are featured in the video, and all emphasize how integral high-speed Internet has been not just for orders, but social media promotions.
The video also features U.S. Senator from Utah Mike Lee, who spoke to the business owners in the area. He concluded that an open Internet needs to be supported, not suppressed, by lawmakers such as himself:
“Our biggest most important task as lawmakers is don’t wreck the Internet, don’t interfere with the Internet,” Lee said. “Leave it alone, allow it to be what it has been, what has made it such a wonderful thing, which is a free marketplace.”
Check out the video here:
We spoke to the network director for the municipal, John Bowcut, back in 2015. At the time of the interview, Bowcut said that the ISP had a take rate of about 80 percent, mainly because they were able to keep prices much lower than the incumbent Comcast. You can check out Christopher’s entire interview with Bowcut here.
This article was originally published on ILSR’s MuniNetworks.org. Read the original here
