A bloke who was so fed-up of shoddy internet service in his rural home opted to take matters into his own hands so he could get speedy broadband.
Jarad Mauch, from Michigan in the United States, built his own broadband network in his back garden – and it’s been such a roaring success he’s connected over 400 homes since – and ended up with a £2m donation to keep things going.
It all began when he was slapped with a bonkers $50,000 (£39,000) quote to get zippy internet at his rural pad. Rather than coughing up the eye-watering sum, this savvy network architect rolled up his sleeves and whacked together a solution.
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At first, Jared was the sole punter of his DIY broadband business, Washtenaw Fiber Properties, but it wasn’t long before he started wiring up his neighbours in Washtenaw County for some serious surfing speeds.
(Image: Jared Mauch)
By January 2021, he’d got 30 properties on the grid, and come 2022, his uncle Sam handed him a hefty $2.6million (£2milllion) cheque to take his project to the next level.
Now, Jared’s managed to plug a whopping 400 plus rural homes into his service and they didn’t have to fork out an arm and a leg for a dodgy dial-up. “This is worth it, we deserve to have the same level of access as someone in the big city,” he declared to Scripps News at the time.
Instead of paying big money with Comcast, one of the US’s telecoms giants, at the quoted $50,000, Jared’s customers now only had to part with about $200 (£158) for the fibre fix-up at launch. After that, it’s just $79 (£62) a month to stay in the fast lane.
(Image: Jared Mauch)
Jared has been dodging the use of telephone poles, which are monopolised by the big broadband firms, by smartly using existing rights-of-way along county roads to lay his own miles of fibre optic cables – and his savvy approach to broadband has turned him into a local hero.
“One of the things I appreciate is meeting people in the community but [also] seeing the look on their faces when they go from a satellite connection and can’t load their email to then see their email load instantly,” he shared.
Jared, who was already an early adopter of the work-from-home lifestyle, had been grappling with a sluggish 1.5Mbps internet speed that was just not cutting it before his innovative move.
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