St. Louis is getting the gig thanks to Arch Fiber (Photo by Jessie Hodge – Flickr – CC License)
Gigabit fiber-to-the-home has been available in Kansas City for nearly three years. But in St. Louis, residential fiber is less plentiful.
Arch Fiber Networks is working hard to change that – and they are looking to Kansas City for guidance.
AFN owns the city’s largest “dark fiber” network — that is, infrastructure that is in place and ready to be used for a variety of applications.
A few weeks ago, AFN announced that it was partnering with a local Internet service provider, Elite Systems LLC, to light up the city’s “first residential fiber Internet services.”
The lucky subscribers of are the dwellers of the Dorsa lofts along Washington Ave. The cost will be comparable to Google Fiber in KC: $70/month for residential and $100 for a business connection.
This represents a giant step forward for St. Louis’ status as a gigabit city. And to accomplish it, they have applied lessons learned from the Gigabit City Summit.
As Owen Graham, Arch Fiber’s Business Development Manager, told us in an email (which was completely out of the blue, we swear!):
Arch Fiber Networks took what was learned from the Gigabit City Summit and applied it to our goal of providing fast and affordable broadband over the AFN fiber network.
AFN has successfully launched GIGABIT Fiber Internet services to residential customers in the Washington Ave. Loft District. We could not have done it without the help and guidance from those at the Summit.
We still have lots of work to do as our goal is to provide all of the city affordable and reliable broadband.
Congrats and applause to Owen and his team at Arch Fiber Networks. With driven, innovative business leaders like them in the community — as well as projects like the Loop Data Rail — St. Louis will get its widespread, affordable fiber soon.
Keep tabs on Owen & co. on the company’s excellent Dark Fiber Blog.