City Utilities

In 2016, Springfield MO’s City Utilities, a city-owned electric utility, embarked on a project to modernize its fiber network and enhance its future Utility operations. City Utilities has unique technology requirements as it provides Electric, Natural Gas, Water, and Transit across its service territory. While City Utilities had built fiber in select areas of the city, it was clear that to successfully maximize long-term utility technologies, it would require the deployment of a service territory-wide fiber-optic network.

Developer: Springfield Utilities

Client Since: 2016

Assignment

After careful examination of deployment options produced by The Broadband Group, City Utilities made the strategic choice to adopt the Utility Lease Model for its territory-wide fiber network deployment. The Utility Lease Model was seen as the optimal approach to provide the Utility with a communications platform that could support today’s technologies, including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and advanced meter reading (AMI), as well as future innovations.

TBG led comprehensive business planning and pro-forma financial modeling, provided strategic guidance on network design, and conducted a competitive selection process that identified CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: LUMN) as the ISP anchor tenant with the operational expertise and financial strength required to enter into a long-term lease agreement,

Achievements

The 1,100 mile fiber network was completed on budget and ahead of schedule in March of 2023. City Utilities General Manager Gary Gibson has been quoted as saying the fiber expansion project met CU’s expectations, pointing to the 2023 Wall Street Journal story that named Springfield at the top of its list of best places to live for remote workers as verification of high-speed internet’s value for the community.

“It accomplished our goals of making sure that there was digital equity and that everyone in Springfield had access to high-speed broadband and really truly made Springfield a gigabit city,” said Gibson.

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