I had a dinner with Brough Turner last night. Brough is the founder and CTO of NMS Communications, a NASDAQ listed mobile application and infrastructure company.

I really enjoyed our conversation that covers from all things technie from mobile to net neutrality. But above all, the story of the original community fiber project in Sweden fascinated me most. He has being kind enough to dig out thru his email and share the story on his blog.

Umea in Northern Sweden goes down in history to build a community fiber to their neighbourhood (60 houses), providing 10/100mbps broadband service in 2000. Yes, six year ago, when we still call 256kbps broadband. Last year, they upgraded to 1Gbps and expanded the network to include a nearby neightbourhood, adding 100 more houses to the network.

This may be a small project but it is impressive in that all was done by the community. Most of all, the capex isn’t as high as I thought it would be. Check out how much each household need to pay to join the network.