How many customers does he have today?

Fast internet in rural areas is sometimes a difficult issue, and not just in Germany. This was shown by the case of the American Jared Mauch from the Washtenaw district in the state of Michigan, which we have already reported on.

But where is he today with his own internet offering?

This question is also interesting because concerns were expressed several times in the comments to our last article. The question was whether the whole thing would even be worthwhile for Mauch (in a timely enough manner) given the known number of 70 customers in 2022.

He now has over 200 customers, as Mauch explained to us.

But let's first take a look back at the history of how his website came about.

We don't have to go as far back as in the following video talk. He deals with the topic Gaming before the Internet: What was it actually like?.

52:33

Slow internet wasn't a problem back when there was no internet at all. You can find out what it was like to play on the PC back then in this video talk from 2016.

How Jared Mauch became his own Internet provider

Essentially, everything got rolling due to two main factors. On the one hand, due to Mauch's previously very slow internet connection. On the other hand, through financial support as part of the corona pandemic.

• This is how fast his internet was before: A modest 1.5 Mbit per second caused frustration for Mauch, who has been working from home for a long time.
• A faster connection would have been so much more expensive: When he asked his provider for an alternative during the 2021 coronavirus pandemic, he was confronted with costs of $50,000.
• This is how he came up with his own offer: As part of the funding Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Mauch successfully applied to be its own internet provider and used the service Washtenaw Fiber Properties LLC brought to life.

In the following comparison, we will take a closer look at how widespread problems with slow internet are in the Washtenaw County region and what contribution Mauch has made to solving them.

The local internet before and after Jared Mauch

The slider image above shows a section of the area where Mauch lives.

• The border in the middle represents the area in which Mauch is now active with its own internet offering (or it wants to be in the future).
• The image on the left shows broadband availability according to an official 2020 Washtenaw County survey.
  • The dark red color indicates the many areas in which a maximum of 10 percent of local people had a broadband connection.
  • Light red stands for 10 to 50 percent, blue for 50 to 90 percent and petrol for 90 to 100 percent.
• The image on the right shows in green which areas Mauch now supplies with fast internet.
  • The areas that Washtenaw Fiber Properties plans to serve in the future are marked in orange.

Mauch told us that the areas marked in orange will be developed by the end of 2024 at the latest. It can therefore be assumed that the number of customers will continue to increase from over 200.

At the same time, the picture above makes it clear that many more people in the region could benefit from such an offer.

This is how much Mauch's internet offering costs

The following table shows the prices for the different speeds according to the official website of Washtenaw Fiber Properties.

What happens next and the question of winning

Mauch confirms to us that the signs point to expansion:

He also confirms the reports about the financial help he receives.

• The state of Michigan supported Mauch's project with $2.6 million.
• A six-figure sum was donated by a wealthy local family.
• Since then there have been further financial donations from the private sector, which Mauch did not quantify in more detail.

We also asked Mauch about the profitability of his large and highly acclaimed project, which was discussed at the beginning.

He hasn't answered this question yet, which is probably less surprising.

If this changes, we will update this article accordingly.