According to the Austin Daily Herald, Austin is getting serious about Gig broadband access. They recently released a vision for the community and the results of a broadband feasibility study…

Vision 2020 released the results of a feasibility study Friday which showed Austin could support a fiber Internet service. According to the study, the high-speed broadband Internet service could be built for about $35 million and could be run by all kinds of organizations, from public utilities to a private co-op.

Under the Gig Austin plan, all of the Austin Public Schools district could access fiber Internet. Laura Helle, director of vision creation at Vision 2020, said the committee believed rural properties near the city that were still part of the district would need access as some providers don’t cover those areas.

More communities are looking at fiber networks as essential features. More than 830 communities and 9.7 million people in the U.S. already have fiber networks, according to the Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Council, a trade association. That includes a number of communities in Minnesota, from Monticello to a group of communities in southwest Minnesota, to entire counties like Cook and Lake.

“Generally, any area that’s served with a telephone cooperative is now served with fiber to the home,” said Bill Coleman, a telecommunications consultant out of Mahtomedi. “We’ve seen a tremendous investment by those companies in those rural networks.”

The feasibility study included a few tidbits that could be valuable for any community…

Vision 2020 found a number of pitfalls involved in a fiber network project. If a community takes on more than 50 percent of the project’s capital costs in debt, the project will likely fail and few people will sign up for the service, according to Helle. If a large portion of the community doesn’t sign up to receive fiber Internet, the project will fail. Fiber advocates have to pitch a project as a community boon and an individual benefit, or the project will falter.

That means far higher Internet prices for residents and businesses than competing Internet providers, even with better Internet speeds.

The initiative has momentum and great community involvement…

The Community Wide Technology committee hopes to use the feasibility study’s results to educate area residents on Gig Austin. Volunteers and experts point out fiber offers speeds far higher than the average 5 megabits per second in the U.S. Fiber is also more reliable, as the glass cables won’t corrode or be damaged by lightning. In addition, a fiber network is built to withstand even faster Internet in the future

But it seems like it still needs a home base…

Gig Austin doesn’t have an owner yet, nor does it have firm costs to build the network. The study may have put a $35 million price tag to build a network in Austin, but costs could grow depending on how Gig Austin is funded. It’s too early to determine how expensive data plans will be to use Austin’s fiber, but Helle and other Vision 2020 volunteers say they want to keep data plans comparable to what residents and businesses currently pay.

It does sounds like Austin is poised to take advantage (or at last apply) for the Minnesota Broadband Development Funds and FCC funds.