Ting Disrupting Mediocre U.S. Broadband By Partnering With Annoyed Cities Like Colorado Springs

Back in 2015 domain registrar Tucows announced it would hope to modestly kickstart stagnant broadband competition bybuying a small Virginia ISPby the name of Blue Ridge InternetWorks (BRI). Operating under the Ting brand name, the company said the goal was to bring a shockingly human experience and fair, honest pricing" to a broken broadband market dominated by a handful of monopolies.

A lot has changed since then. Ting has subsequently expanded its broadband disruption efforts into six different states, and is currently either operating or building broadband networks in 16 different locations.

In many instances, Ting is partnering with local governments looking to provide better, faster, and cheaper broadband. That includes Colorado Springs, which is currently building its own open access" fiber network via its existing electric utility, with Ting as the first anchor tenant. The city will be Ting's biggest partner to date:

Ting is an interesting type of fiber provider in the U.S., using different business strategies to deliver fiber to customers. Sometimes it builds and owns its own networks. But other times, it leverages municipal-owned backbone fiber and then builds last mile connections to residential customers. Or, in the case with Colorado Springs Utilities, it acts as an anchor tenant on the fiber network of a city or utility."

The network is open access, meaning that while Colorado Springs owns the underlying infrastructure, numerous ISPs can come in and compete in layers. Everybody wins: the city makes money from lease agreements (and can ensure uniform coverage to marginalized neighborhoods), and ISPs can have access to local residents for a fraction of what it would have cost to build the networks themselves.

In some such deployments, like Ammon, Idaho, customers can switch ISPs in a matter of seconds using an online portal. Locally owned, such providers are usually more responsible to complaints since they actually live in the communities they serve. We discussed this and similar models in notable detail in our Copia report on broadband competition last year.

In Colorado Springs, Ting is providing 2 Gbps (gigabit per second) broadband connections for $89 a month with no caps, no hidden fees, and no long term contracts. Data routinely indicates that community owned, open access broadband networks tend to provide better, cheaper, faster service than regional incumbent monopolies. Such efforts have pushed the cost of gigabit service below $70 in many markets.

Unsurprisingly this model, where numerous competitors drive down prices and spur ISPs to actually try is a nightmare for companies like AT&T and Comcast, which is why they've worked tirelessly for years to ban such efforts on both the state and federal level. Such companies, routinely engaged in fraud and slathered in wasted subsidies, insist their opposition is strictly rooted in concern for taxpayer welfare.

Ting is moving cautiously, and currently only serves an estimated 85,500 addresses nationwide (though the Colorado Springs network is expected to serve around 200,000 residents). But the open access model they've been embracing is taking root all over the country, driving competition to markets where Comcast has been the only meaningful broadband provider for several decades.

All told, more than 900 communities have built their own broadband networks, either directly as a municipality, as an extension of the city-owned utility, or via local cooperatives. And it's a trend that's accelerating for two reasons: the billions now flowing into the sector courtesy of the infrastructure bill, and the widespread frustration communities had with substandard broadband during peak COVID.