Anacortes council approves 36‑month Ziply Fiber contract for city internet

The Anacortes City Council on Aug. 10 authorized the mayor to sign a 36‑month contract with Northwest Fiber LLC, doing business as Zipply Fiber, to provide the city with a dedicated Ethernet internet connection.

Mister Lemberg, the city’s fiber manager, told the council that Zipply maintains two geographically diverse fiber paths into Anacortes and that their network design keeps capacity headroom so traffic can fail over from one path to the other. “I personally feel very, very confident in the engineering of that and feel it will be a strong addition to our providing robust connectivity for Anacortes to the rest of the world,” he said. The contract moves the city from a 10 Gbps Cogent circuit to a 20 Gbps Ziply circuit; staff noted the monthly cost goes from about $3,700 to $4,200 but the price per gigabit improves.

Councilmember Young moved the contract and the council approved it by voice vote. Councilmembers asked about potential marketing of retail Ziply services to residents; Lemberg said the vendor understands the city’s role and that the relationship will be “coopetition”—both cooperative and competitive in parts—but that the contract included a 30‑day termination clause if the city becomes dissatisfied.

Why it matters: the contract is intended to increase capacity and improve resilience for municipal services, resident access and business continuity. The city will flip its existing primary connection to a backup role once Ziply is activated later this year.

Speakers quoted or cited: Mister Lemberg (fiber manager); Mister Young (councilmember).