Brownsville, Texas is Lit and Ready To Launch Into The Future

U.S. News & World Report recently ranked Brownsville, Texas as one of best places to live in the Lone Star State and as one of the most affordable places to retire.

Now – as the border city continues to make progress on an ambitious revitalization initiative – it is adding to its “best, most affordable” resume by transforming the digital landscape with a citywide fiber network to bring fast, reliable, and affordable Internet service to its nearly 200,000 residents.

The effort is being launched on the back of a city-owned middle mile fiber backbone and partnership with Lit Fiber to build out last mile service, operating as Lit Fiber BTX.

“We just lit up our first subscriber and will have 10,000 locations-passed by the end of the year,” Rene Gonzalez, Lit Fiber’s Senior Vice President of Policy and Regulatory Affairs, told ILSR this week.

“Brownsville was a place that had been neglected. But now, SpaceX is here. We are here. It’s exciting.”

The excitement was palpable last week at the BTX Demo Center in downtown Brownsville where city and Lit Fiber officials held a “special community social” to celebrate service getting turned on for the first LIT Fiber BTX subscriber and to showcase what the network will offer city residents and businesses moving forward.

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“We are thrilled to officially begin offering services in Brownsville,” Mayor John Cowen, Jr. said in an announcement for the community social. “Our commitment, with Lit Fiber by our side, is to deliver not just fast Internet, but a reliable and affordable service that meets the needs of every household and business, with varying income levels, here in our community.”

“We had a huge turnout where people were even asking if we’re hiring,” Lit Fiber Director of Marketing Operations Michelle Bando Gates told ILSR, adding that the Demo Center will remain open to give city residents a chance to “see and experience what the service will be like in the home.”

Calling Bluffs, Building A Backbone, Spurring Private Investment

Despite the presence of AT&T, Spectrum, and T-Mobile, for years the city was labeled with the ignominious distinction of being on the National Digital Inclusion Alliance’s (NDIA) “Worst Connected Cities List” of 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. Eager to leave that distinction behind and upgrade Brownsville’s telecommunications infrastructure, city leaders used nearly $20 million of its federal Rescue Plan funds to construct a middle-mile backbone.

As we previously reported, the city issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) in 2022 seeking to build an open-access middle mile backbone and to partner with a private Internet service provider (ISP) to build and operate the network. The city was also seeking a partner to build out last mile service.

During that time, the cable monopoly in the area (Charter Spectrum) launched an ad campaign that sought to discourage the city from “wasting” taxpayer dollars on the project in a transparent attempt to stave off competition.

However, as Gonzalez recalled, “the story they (Charter) were telling didn’t match reality. The Mayor gave them a chance to participate in the (RFP) process, but Charter didn’t respond.”

It was enough to call the incumbent’s bluff and effectively ended Charter’s smear campaign.

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The city ultimately awarded the bid to Lit Fiber, who agreed to not only build, operate, and maintain the open-access backbone, but to transfer ownership of the backbone to the city and enable the city to connect government facilities and integrate “smart city” applications.

Lit Fiber also agreed to invest $70 million of its own private-equity backed funds to build out a citywide last mile network.

An added bonus for the city was that Lit Fiber would build enough middle mile capacity to accommodate at least three ISPs to offer last mile service, creating the conditions for a more competitive marketplace with Lit Fiber BTX as the first to offer retail service. 

Construction of the backbone began in 2022, deploying 100 miles of fiber in a “loop architecture” for redundancy purposes, ensuring the network would be as reliable and resilient as possible.

That work was “substantially completed” earlier this year, Gonzalez said, explaining how the city’s $19.5 million investment was the key to enabling Lit Fiber to begin building the citywide fiber network.

Of course, he said, construction hasn’t been without its challenges: working with utility owners, “building in old areas,” and dealing with a maze of “record keeping on (underground utility) locates.”

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“But the foundation has been built and that (middle mile) project is why we were able to come into Brownsville. It significantly reduced capital costs,” he said.

In the Spring of this year, Lit Fiber began the first phase of construction of the last mile network, which will pass 10,000 locations.

“We began offering service where the ring was already lit. Right now we are doing a lot of boring and horizontal drilling, although we could cover a lot more ground, faster, if we could go on (utility) poles,” Gonzalez explained.

Still, he said, network construction, which will involve both underground and aerial deployment, is on track for the network to pass all 50,000 locations in this 145 square-mile city by the end of 2025, early 2026.

Offering Affordable Service, Creating Community Empowerment

In keeping with the city’s focus on making Brownsville an affordable place to live and work, Lit Fiber BTX will offer five service tiers, including a low-cost plan for qualified households.

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Subscribers will be able to choose between a symmetrical 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) connection for $35/month; 300 Mbps service for $50/month; a 500 Mbps connection for $60/month; or a symmetrical gig speed package for $70/month.

Lit Fiber will also offer a $15/month plan for income-eligible households, the qualifications for which will closely follow the eligibility guidelines for the now expired Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

All of Lit Fiber’s plans feature no contracts, no data caps, or credit checks.

In addition to moving forward with network construction, Lit Fiber Director of Marketing Operations Michelle Bando Gates said they are also focused on getting the word out as far and wide as possible.

“Our goal is to reach a 30 percent take rate. We are not there yet but we have only released three areas so far,” she said. “We are getting tons of interest and we have had a lot of success with in-person events with the experience center downtown. Thankfully, we don’t have to try too hard because the interest is there.”

So far, she said, thanks to a focus on direct mailings, Lit Fiber is seeing “good interest” in mostly their half gig and gig service offerings, adding that residents are being encouraged to sign up for service and check for availability via Lit Fiber’s dedicated webpage.

On the operation's side, the main focus, Gates said, is “we have to be great at customer service and great at price points.”

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And even beyond the necessity of having a good business plan that generates sales, Gonzalez added, the ultimate sign of success will be the cascading benefits the network will provide Brownsville.

“We are here to facilitate connectivity and we are a private enterprise,” he said. “But we want to see graduation rates going up, job retention rates going up, for people to believe in themselves again, and feel strengthened and empowered. It’s an exciting time.”

Header image of Mayor John Cowen at Lit Fiber BTX ribbon cutting event courtesy of Lit Fiber BTX

All inline images courtesy of Lit Fiber BTX