Beehive Broadband has big broadband dreams. After rolling fiber in their native service areas in Tooele County (even into the spec of nothingness that is Grouse Creek) and hitting downtown SLC with fiber rings, they’re now making a push to bring gigabit fiber into The Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City. Pricing is targeted around $40-50/mo for 100Mbps and $70 or so for gigabit with an install fee in the $100-200 range. They’ll also be offering up phone and TV service for those so inclined.
The strategy is simple: build fiber to commercial buildings, then target neighborhoods nearby to bring it to the home. If this sounds familiar, it’s because CenturyLink said they would do the same thing, yet they seem to be very slow to follow up on it. Beehive is also evaluating using this plan in many other cities including Draper, Herriman, Holladay, Riverton, and Lehi. Right now, they’re looking primarily at areas that are being ignored by Comcast and CenturyLink.
So what about Google Fiber’s entry into SLC? Beehive is taking a “first to market” approach and plans to start hooking people up as early as mid-January, well before Google will turn over a single shovel of dirt. They’re also planning to make service available to all addresses in the footprint, something Google hasn’t done once their initial “fiberhood” signup period closes outside of a few exceptions in Provo. My take is that this is going to be a more successful strategy that could stymie Google’s efforts to break into that neighborhood.
If you get signed up on this service, let us know in the comments how it works out.
“…well before Google will turn over a single shovel of dirt.”???
Google had already turned lots of dirt laying conduit and fiber all over Salt Lake by at least May 2015, six months before you wrote this article.
FYI: Comcast just installed fiber in my neighborhood in Riverton.
HFC topography means they got it to the node (and probably made smaller nodes), but they are still using the coax connection from there to your house and sharing it with voice, video, and everyone on the node.