Flagstaff, Arizona, provides a good example of how a public-private partnership for broadband can deliver tremendous benefits for a community.
“Broadband Community Profile: A Public-Private Partnership for Fiber — Flagstaff, Arizona,” a whitepaper published by the Fiber Broadband Association, discussed the partnership and the results in great detail.
City leaders saw broadband as a key element in providing better city operations and to benefit local citizens by making remote work a reality as well as helping improve telemedicine, education, and business growth across Flagstaff and the surrounding area.
The city of Flagstaff made some rules changes, including allowing microtrenching, used $2 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for its investment, and created a public-private partnership with telecom provider Wecom Fiber to build a fiber network that will pass over 30,000 locations within city limits, connect 34 municipal facilities, and extend an additional 815 miles across Coconino County.
The microtrenching change was important to the success of the project. Microtrenching, a construction method that installs fiber with minimal road disruption, had been banned in Flagstaff, but a successful pilot and examination of other sites where the technique has been used convinced municipal officials to change the construction rule.
Wecom Fiber is an Arizona-based provider established in 1956, backed by Searchlight Capital Partners. Wecom was selected for the public-private partnership because of its financial capacity, community commitment, and experience deploying fiber across rural Arizona, according to the Fiber Broadband Association.
The public-private partnership is expected to inject at least $100 million into the Flagstaff economy over five years and support hundreds of direct and indirect jobs.
Though the whitepaper touts the benefits of the public-private partnership for Flagstaff, there can be pitfalls as well as successes in these types of arrangements. The pros and cons of public-private partnerships were discussed by a panel at the Fiber Connect 2025 Conference.
