As usual, David Rodeback is on top of the AFCNet situation in American Fork. According to him, Surpha will buy AFCNet for $500,000 and make interest-only payments for the network with a goal to pay it off by the end of 2012. They'll lease fiber capacity from the city from American Fork to Orem (ostensibly to connect up to their POP) and become the big bad bill collector for ISPs behind on their payments to the city, keeping half of the money and putting the other half into the purchase price. The city isn't dumping the debt incurred as a part of network construction, but they also aren't ditching their fiber lines going to other cities.
Without more details about Surpha, I don't know if this particular owner-financed deal fares any better than Provo's current boondoggle. On the one hand, the purchase price is low and the financing is for just 3.5 years. Surpha also has a working relationship with the city as an ISP on the network. On the other hand, Surpha hasn't updated its website in almost 2 years, their stock price is in the sewer and there are rumors of investors who want blood. I'm approaching this one with cautious optimism.
