Man who built his own broadband after getting sick of paying bills gets £2.1m from government
A story of tremendous ingenuity has emerged from the US after one man became so fed up with slow internet speeds that he set up his own broadband.
Jared Mauch from Michigan was forced into the drastic action after receiving a whopping $50,000 (£40,000) bill to increase the web coverage around his house.
Mauch was putting up with glacial internet speeds of 1.5Mbps, which prompted him to construct an ISP (Internet Service Provider) on his own land - an incredible success story even then, with the Daily Mirror reporting that the network engineer had added 70 of his neighbours onto the server.
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Now, Mauch has been given millions of dollars to provide a service for 600 more homes, as he sticks two fingers up at Comcast, who quoted him with that bill of $50,000.
He told ArsTechnica: "If they had priced it at $10,000, I would have written them a cheque.
"It was so high at $50,000 that it made me consider if this is worthwhile. Why would I pay them to expand their network if I get nothing back out of it."
Through creating 38 additional miles of fibre broadband, Mauch’s customers can pay £44 ($55) a month for 100Mbps – much faster than the previous speeds of 1.5Mbps.
However, the process was far from simple, and this was only possible through Mauch’s expertise as a network engineer, allowing him to start the company Washtenaw Fiber Properties.
That leads us onto the broadband services in the UK, with outages have reported in some areas amid high temperatures.
A number of warnings have been issued to people during the heatwave, advising customers to keep their internet routers out of the sun to stop them overheating.
There is a scheme from Ofcom, which allows broadband and landline customers to get compensation if anything goes wrong with their provide, with no insurance claim needed.
Make sure you report the fault to whoever your broadband provider is and you will be able to receive some money back - have a look to see if your provider is signed up by clicking here, something that might be helpful as the Met Office's four-day extreme heat warning continues to be in place until Sunday (14 August).
James Hilsum