The City of Superior now has the first publicly-owned, open-access broadband network in the state of Wisconsin. ConnectSuperior went live this week and is currently available to residents and businesses in the Central Superior neighborhood.
Superior’s open-access network is like a highway. The city owns and maintains the infrastructure, in this case fiber optic cables and lines. Then different companies, internet service providers, can use that to transport internet access to customers.
How can residents plug into new internet options? ConnectSuperior offers two different internet service providers: Advance Stream and Superion. The city expected to have 80 customers make the switch within the first year. But they have already surpassed that with close to 100 people joining just this first week.
Internet access is expected to continue growing in other neighborhoods across their four year plan. Mayor Jim Paine says there are already plans in the coming weeks for more residents to have access to ConnectSuperior.
“The next neighborhood will be the far North End. There were a couple reasons for that. Namely, that’s where we put our fiber hut where we’re getting access to the internet. So we will there will be another neighborhood around the Catlin Court area. That will be this fall,” Mayor Paine said. “Then it becomes a political and financial question for the city council. It’s clear the public wants this.”
Mayor Paine added that the money paid for the internet services will go towards more infrastructure investments to ConnectSuperior.
“They want to join. It’s clear that this is going to be profitable. So we have to keep making the investments to reach the kind of customers we need that can actually pay for the network. Folks can’t join and start paying for the network until it reaches their house,” Mayor Paine said. “So we do have to put that up for an investment. I’m prepared to move fairly aggressively.”
Also here’s more information on when your neighborhood in Superior will be able to join ConnectSuperior.