An American created a rural Internet provider and received $ 2.6 million

In 2002, Mauch moved to Sio Township, a rural area in Michigan, when his employer provided

future entrepreneur excellent homeinternet connection: many of his neighbors at the time were still struggling with slow dial-up access. After a while, however, the network's bandwidth could no longer cope with Mauch's technical work and the needs of his growing family.

But when he began to look at the alternative,the options did not suit him. Internet speed from AT&T was painfully slow. Comcast wanted to charge him $50,000 upfront to extend service to his home. Then Mauch chose the third path.

Instead of shelling out that kind of money only to be at the mercy of the whims of the ISP, the 46-year-old decided to build his own fiber optic network. internet service provider

"I had every reason to believe that I couldfulfill many of the requirements, and then also offer their services to the local community, and do it better than the big companies, he told NPR. “I saw this as a great opportunity both to expand services and to pursue what I am passionate about.”

Jared Moh. Photo: NRP

He created the company in 2017 and in 2019received permission to start construction. In August 2020, he was officially in business. Just in time for his kids to go to virtual school during the pandemic.

“It was great,” he recalled. “I had a home fiber that I was in control of and the ability to control my future destiny.”

Along the way, he also connected his neighbors to hishigh speed fiber optic lines. His business has grown and today serves 71 clients with reliable internet. With the help of contractors, he has already laid more than 22 km of cable throughout the county. Sometimes it takes almost a kilometer of cable to connect one house in the countryside.

Now Moh gets $2.6 million from the federalbudget to continue its work. It was one of four ISPs that received federal money to expand fiber internet services in the county due to the pandemic. With this money, Mauch plans to connect another 600 houses to the network. This will require laying another 61 km of cable.

Scharrer hopes to have his entire county served by high-speed broadband by the end of 2024.

According to BroadbandNow, about 42 million Americans do not have broadband access.

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