This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Longmont's NextLight Gigabit Network is reporting a take rate of 51% of passed households, significantly more than the projected rate of approximately 32%. Nextlight has converted approximately 14,000 non-Nextlight internet customers to Longmont's municipal gigabit internet service.
Due to the increased take up rate, Nextlight asked for approximately $7M of additional funding to build out the network at an increased rate to meet demand. This money was already approved from the original bond issue since only $38M of approx $45M was used so no additional new bonds need to be issued.
In addition, due to the increased demand, payoff of the bond, originally projected to be done by 2029, is now estimated to be paid off by 2025, 4 years ahead of schedule.
