An Iowa Town’s $60 Million Plan to Span the Broadband Gap

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In 2020, West Des Moines (IA) entered a partnership with Google Fiber, the super-fast internet service that Alphabet offers in several US cities. But unlike previous cities that have participated in the decade-old initiative, West Des Moines is building the fiber conduit network itself, in exchange for Google Fiber promising to lay its fiber lines in front of every home and business in the city — not just in areas the company believes will be profitable. Additionally, the conduit network is not being built only for Google: The city can lease space in the multi-lane tunnels to several internet providers, who will feed their own fiber lines through the existing conduit.  It’s a model called open access infrastructure, wherein a public entity builds shared infrastructure for private companies to offer competing services.


An Iowa Town’s $60 Million Plan to Span the Broadband Gap