Spanish Fork reported that their municipal network is going to turn a $275,000 profit for fiscal year 2008, a stark contrast to the red ink bled by iProvo. What's Spanish Fork's secret? For starters, they decided on a less expensive HFC network as opposed to FTTP, a choice that saved money now but sacrifices some expandability in the future. SFCN also has a very high participation rate with over 70% of households subscribing to Internet, television or both. Because there were no other broadband choices when SFCN was built, they got the "first to market" advantage. The city operates both the wholesale and retail portions of the network because they built it before the law prohibited cities from being retailers. With the money they're putting in the bank on this one, it's only a matter of time before they'll expand the fiber all the way to the home.
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