A proposed pilot project to bring super-fast Internet service to Lawrence has decreased in size, but the competition between two local companies hoping to bring the Google Fiber-like service to the city is getting sharper.

City commissioners at their meeting Tuesday will hear proposals from Lawrence-based Wicked Broadband and Baldwin City-based RG Fiber to bring gigabit Internet service to parts of Lawrence.

The competition is getting heated. Wicked is asking for a city loan guarantee to move forward on its project, while RG Fiber said it has the private funding available to proceed, but will cancel its Lawrence plans if the city grants a loan guarantee to its competitor. City commissioners are left to referee, and at least one commissioner said that is fine with him. “The good news is we’re getting some competition,” Commissioner Bob Schumm said. “We’re getting people who want to get into the market, and they are swinging their elbows under the basket a little bit.”

Officials with Wicked, which previously operated as Lawrence Freenet, are asking commissioners to provide a $300,000 loan guarantee that would allow the company to hook up 300 Lawrence addresses to the gigabit service, which is about 100 times faster than the average Internet connection. Previously, Wicked was asking for a $1 million loan guarantee to provide service to 1,000 Lawrence addresses, mainly in downtown and East Lawrence.

Josh Montgomery, an owner of Wicked, said the smaller plan likely would mean the pilot project will be focused more on downtown and less on East Lawrence. But he said he sees the smaller pilot project as being more palatable to city commissioners, who have taken months to move forward on the broadband question.

The leader with RG Fiber said Monday his company would halt plans for gigabit service in Lawrence if the city grants a loan guarantee to Wicked. Mike Bosch, the co-founder of RG Fiber, said his board has approved a pilot project that would bring gigabit service to downtown, the corridors along Sixth Street, Iowa Street, 23rd Street and Wakarusa Drive.

Bosch’s company is involved in bringing gigabit service to Baldwin City. The company is hosting an event Wednesday with Gov. Sam Brownback, Baldwin City officials and leaders of Baker University touting the project. As part of that Baldwin City project, RG Fiber will be bringing a key section of fiber optic cable through Lawrence, which makes it feasible for RG Fiber to extend gigabit service to parts of Lawrence.

“If the city intervenes and funds our competitors, it is just not a smart business move for us to invest money and compete with the city of Lawrence,” Bosch said.

Montgomery, though, counters that it is no coincidence that interest in the Lawrence broadband marked picked up once Wicked started proposing gigabit service.

“We feel like this competition is a direct result of us pushing this project forward,” Montgomery said. “The city should be working to get the best deal it can for consumers.”

Commissioners are left to sort it all out. Commissioners also may hear from the two large Internet service providers in town, WOW and AT&T. Both companies have opposed the loan guarantee request by Wicked. Recently, WOW announced it has plans to more than double its Internet speeds in Lawrence by January.

Commissioner Jeremy Farmer said he doesn’t believe a city loan guarantee to Wicked should cause RG Fiber to drop its plans for Lawrence.

“If one company requested financial incentives and the other didn’t, that is not the city backing one over the other,” Farmer said. “One asked for assistance, and the other didn’t. I think the two companies just have different needs.”

Schumm previously had expressed concern over the proposed $1 million loan guarantee. He said he wants to hear more about the feasibility of RG Fiber’s proposal before deciding how to proceed on the Wicked request.

“If there is some guy who is willing to do this with his own money, I’m probably going to be interested in looking at that pretty seriously,” Schumm said.

Commissioners meet at 6:35 p.m. tonight at City Hall.

— City reporter Chad Lawhorn can be reached at 832-6362, or at clawhorn@ljworld.com