Berthoud votes to sign MOU with private broadband provider

BERTHOUD — The Berthoud Town Board decided last week to join with three neighboring towns in a memorandum of understanding with a broadband internet provider that will provide fiber optic connections to every property in the four communities within three years.

The four communities — Berthoud, Johnstown, Mead and Milliken — have been exploring a means to step up high speed internet access in a way that builds out a network in a few short years without a cost to the public in those communities.

Walt Elish, business development director for the town of Berthoud, told the town board that staff of the four communities recommend signing that MOU with Allo Communications LLC, a Lincoln, Nebraska, broadband provider that is currently working on developing a network in Greeley.

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Allo was among 13 companies that were interested in providing the broadband services to the four towns. Staff of the communities narrowed it to three and selected Allo to recommend, Elish said.

Cost to develop a broadband network that connects every property in the four towns would be about $60 million, all of which would be paid by Allo instead of taxpayers in the communities, thus shifting the risk from the public to the private sector.

The board, while supportive of having a private entity create the network, asked whether a Berthoud company, Hilltop Broadband, tradename for Smiling J LLC, could do the work or would be interested.

Hilltop was not among those companies seeking the agreement with the four towns but likely could do Berthoud alone, or all the communities over a longer period of time.

Town administrator Christopher Kirk said the agreement with Allo is not exclusive and would permit another entity to build out its own network if it chose to do so.

Board member May Soricelli said she wanted the board to hear from Hilltop and other members of the community before deciding. In the end, however, the board voted 6-1 to approve the creation of an MOU with Allo. Soricelli voted against.

This article was first published by BizWest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement. © 2022 BizWest Media LLC.