500 megabits per second (Mbps) for residential customers, depending on their building’s infrastructure, for $55 per month or $500 for the year. Those prices will increase to $60 per month or $550 per year starting Oct. 1.
NetBlazr has three options for residential customers: 8-15 Mbps for $39.95 per month, 20-40 Mbps for $69.95 per month, or a “concierge” plan that promises 300 Mbps for $59.95 per month but isn’t as widely available yet, Hanley says.
The 300 Mbps option—which requires more costly infrastructure—is currently available in more than 10 buildings around Boston, and “we’re adding a couple buildings a month,” Hanley says. “The concierge service is where we’re seeing most of our growth,” he adds.
NetBlazr and Webpass are both eyeing new cities. Webpass—which already offers its service in San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, and Chicago, as well as Boston—is considering expanding to New York next year, Bennett says. Hanley says NetBlazr could make its first foray outside the Boston area in the next six months or so, perhaps to a city like Providence, RI.
If all goes well for NetBlazr, Hanley envisions it offering Internet service to customers throughout the Northeast and as far south as Washington, D.C.
This year’s influx of nearly $1 million in cash should help, although NetBlazr will have to spend it wisely because Hanley says it’s meant to last the company for the next two years.
“This capital is going to allow us to really refine our model, get our growth pace up, get our team built, and get the systems in place to allow us to go from one city to two cities to five cities to 10 cities,” he says.
If NetBlazr expands as much as Hanley hopes, it should have a successful business—even if it still barely registers on the radar of its much bigger competitors.
“In the U.S., there’s so little choice in broadband that there’s room for a lot of people to come in and improve upon the monopoly business models that exist today,” Hanley says. “You don’t need to become a $50 billion company like Comcast to make a difference in society.”
