This week: Ryan Meche, director of LUS Fiber, a municipal fiber provider in Lafayette, Louisiana, on why the city chose a municipal broadband model, how it's funded and how it works and the company's plans for a potential NTIA grant.

Nicole Ferraro, Editor, host of 'The Divide' podcast

October 21, 2021

The Divide: How LUS Fiber makes the muni model work in Lafayette, Louisiana

This week on the podcast, we hear from Ryan Meche, director of LUS Fiber, a municipal fiber provider in Lafayette, Louisiana, which has been providing broadband service to the area since 2009.

LUS Fiber emerged from Lafayette Utilities System (LUS), the city's provider of electric, water and wastewater for nearly 125 years. Despite pushback and a series of lawsuits brought by incumbent telcos, LUS Fiber now serves about 25,000 customers in the city of Lafayette.

We discuss why the city chose a municipal broadband model, how it's funded and how it functions differently as a public utility than a private ISP.

We also discuss how LUS Fiber is managing supply shortages, and the company's recent application for an NTIA grant which it hopes to use to expand north to Ville Platte, Louisiana, a community "with the fifth-slowest broadband in the nation," says Meche.

Related episodes:

— Nicole Ferraro, contributing editor and host of "The Divide" and "What's the Story?" Light Reading

A version of this story first appeared on Broadband World News.

About the Author(s)

Nicole Ferraro

Editor, host of 'The Divide' podcast, Light Reading

Nicole covers broadband, policy and the digital divide. She hosts The Divide on the Light Reading Podcast and tracks broadband builds in The Buildout column. Some* call her the Broadband Broad (*nobody).

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