IQ Fiber celebrated the launch of its Sale Engineering Technical Operations Center on Thursday, headquarters for the company’s $40 million expansion in Gainesville.  

Started two years ago in Jacksonville, IQ Fiber is now rolling out residential internet service in northwest Gainesville along with Duval, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns counties. The company has installed more than 600 miles of fiber optic cable in its service areas since its inception. 

Ted Schremp, CEO of IQ Fiber, said Gainesville seemed like a logical choice because of the proximity to Jacksonville and the strong economy.  

“Plenty of people are moving, as we all know, moving from up north to Florida and making their way to cities like Gainesville,” Schremp said.  

He added that Gainesville is an underserved market from the company’s perspective and that they’ve heard from residents who want more options. The city of Gainesville considered launching its own broadband service last year to help fill gaps that the City Commission saw.  

Schremp said the City Commission’s deliberations in 2022 caught the company’s attention, and he added that internet service has become a critical utility, with households relying on it for education, work and entertainment.  

“We believe in competition and choice and hope that people will vote with their wallet and elect our service for their broadband,” Schremp said.  

He said the company has nearly a 30% adoption rate in Jacksonville, where the initial neighborhoods have been running for about a year. In September, IQ Fiber was named Jacksonville’s fastest internet.  

In Gainesville, the first neighborhoods could begin connecting at the start of 2024 as the company continues tunneling and installing the fiber network.  

While hundreds of miles of fiber cable is complex, Schremp said the human element can be more difficult for companies.  

“Frankly, the hardest part of all this is actually the human,” Schremp said. “How do you make sure that technology is really backed up by a great install experience, a great customer experience and how do you just take a lot of the irritants out of the equation.” 

IQ Fiber aims to simplify the customer experience with no fees—including installation and disconnect—taxes or contracts. The only price you pay, Schremp said, is the monthly cost of the service—with four tiers at $65, $75, $85 and $125 per month. 

Schremp said the company backs up customers with quick support. They monitor call times daily, and Schremp said if someone called on Wednesday, it took 14 seconds on average to connect with a person.  

“They’re relying on us,” Schremp said. “If they wake up in the morning and their internet’s out, they’ve got to figure out ‘do I drive to the office,’ ‘do I go work in the Starbucks?’ We want to be there for them in their time of need.”  

The company provides a symmetrical service with up to 5 gigabytes per second of upload and download speed.  

“It has always been a policy priority of mine to extend broadband competition in our community,” Mayor Harvey Ward said in a release. “I’m pleased to see IQ Fiber expanding into the Gainesville market, and I hope their presence here will create a variety of opportunities for all our neighbors.”     

IQ Fiber will staff up to 30 local employees to conduct the expansion, and the company has grown to more than 100 employees since its founding. 

The company now has $200 million in private backing to continue expanding and growing, Schremp said. And with the expansion into Gainesville, he said all companies will need to improve and up their game.  

“Having a reliable provider and a provider that’s deploying private capital on a competitive basis, I think it’s good for everybody,” Schremp said.