Last year we reported on a deal between Google Fiber and North Kansas City. The provider entered into a long-term lease to use LiNKCity dark fiber to incorporate into its area deployment. The City recently announced it will now enter into a public-private partnership with DataShack to bring fiber to local businesses and residents. Residents will receive free high-speed access. From the City’s announcement:
The partnership between these two companies will enable residents to experience Gigabit speeds for FREE. On January 1st, 2015 all existing residential customers will be upgraded to free monthly 100 mb internet service. New customers after January 1st will have the opportunity to choose between three service options; free monthly gigabit internet service with a $300 installation fee, free monthly 100 mb internet service with a $100 installation fee, or free 50 mb internet service with a $50 installation fee.
A Kansas City Biz Journal article reports that North Kansas City will retain ownership of the infrastructure and DataShack will bring free gigabit Internet service to the public library, city churches, and all public schools. Profits and losses will be shared equally but the City’s losses are capped at $150,000, including the capital investment. DataShack will operate and maintain the network.
“It’s a win-win for the city,” said Byron McDaniel, the city’s communications utility director. “It’s really giving back to the community what they’ve invested into the network.”
According to the Kansas City Star, the network has a lot of business customers, which is the core of DataShack’s strategy:
Today, liNKCity has about 460 business customers in North Kansas City who pay anywhere from $80 to $500 a month for high-speed connections. DataShack plans to keep business rates the same while cranking up speeds.
About 440 residential customers currently buy hookups from liNKCity. Brown said he expects the free service to make that number double or triple.
Frankly, we don’t yet understand this business model but as we learn more, we’ll write about it. LiNKCity has always been an odd network as it was funded with revenues from a casino, which seemed to change the incentives for how quickly it was expected to break even and pay for itself financially.