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Billionaire investor Dan Gilbert's high-speed internet provider company, Rocket Fiber, has signed up 18 residential buildings (list below) and 53 commercial sites in downtown and Midtown Detroit since its January launch
Clients include The David Whitney, The Albert and The Ashley and the commercial ones include the Penobscot Building, DIME and Chrysler House and One Campus Martius, headquarters for Quicken Loans.
"We are planning expansion to many more buildings and neighborhoods," the company's website says.
"It's a democratized system -- where the demand is, Rocket Fiber will be focusing on first," Rock Ventures spokesman Colby Berthume tells Deadline Detroit.
Executives hope upgraded Internet availability helps attract high-tech start-ups to the city.
The prices: $70 a month for one gigabit for residential service, which is said to be 10 to 20 times faster than most services, and $299 for the 10-gigabit option, described as 1,000 times faster.
The availability of the service could also be a determining factor for some searching for housing in the city.
"I will hopefully be getting a job down in Detroit soon and have been looking at commuting in," wrote one person on Reddit Detroit last year. "After seeing this I am going to start looking for rentals in the service area!"
The company has laid more than 20 miles of fiber cables,.Rocket Fiber's site says.
Service is available at these residential buildings so far:
- The Albert
- The Malcomson
- Lofts of Merchants Row
- Willy’s Overland Lofts
- The Auburn
- Cadillac Square Apartments
- Forest Arms Apartments
- Regis Houze
- Town Apartments
- Broderick Tower
- The David Whitney
- Claridge House
- The Kales Building
- The Ashley
- Woodward Lofts
- The Residences at the Westin Book Cadillac
- Kirby Lofts
- The Scott
