Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Visit the Eastern U.P.

When Dr. Jekyll arrived in the Eastern Upper Peninsula, he saw something remarkable.

He saw communities building connections between schools, libraries, healthcare providers, local governments, tribes, businesses, and citizens. He saw organizations working together through what became known as the EUPConnect Collaborative. The goal was not merely to buy internet service. The goal was to build community capacity.

Dr. Jekyll understood that broadband infrastructure is like a railway. Once the tracks exist, many businesses can use them to move goods, ideas, and opportunities. The more participants that can access the network, the stronger the local economy becomes.

So the Collaborative pursued an ecosystem where networks could interconnect openly, where institutions could share resources, and where communities could shape their own digital future rather than simply consume services delivered from afar.

For a time, the future looked bright.

Local providers could compete.

Community institutions could collaborate.

Entrepreneurs could innovate.

Schools could connect students to the wider world.

Economic opportunity flowed across the region like traffic on a well-traveled highway.

But hidden within Dr. Jekyll was Mr. Hyde.

Mr. Hyde saw the same network and thought differently.

“Why allow many participants,” he asked, “when a few large owners can control everything?”

The owners of the largest networks already possessed the infrastructure. If wholesale access became too expensive, independent providers would disappear. If interconnection occurred only on the terms of dominant carriers, community networks would become dependent on outside gatekeepers.

The mathematics of concentration began to take hold.

The largest firms gained more subscribers.

More subscribers produced more revenue.

More revenue funded more infrastructure.

More infrastructure attracted even more subscribers.

The cycle repeated itself.

Economists call this cumulative advantage.

The people of the EUP simply call it the rich get richer.

Eventually the network ceases to function as a platform for local prosperity and instead becomes a mechanism for extracting value from local communities. Wealth, decision-making, and innovation migrate toward distant centers while rural regions become customers rather than partners.

That was the future Mr. Hyde preferred.

The EUPConnect Collaborative chose a different path.

Its leaders understood that infrastructure alone is not enough.

A road is valuable only if people can use it.

A network is valuable only if people can connect to it fairly.

That is why wholesale rate regulation matters.

Without fair access pricing, small providers and community-oriented operators cannot survive long enough to compete.

That is why carrier-neutral interconnection facilities matter.

Without neutral meeting places, every participant must negotiate from a position of weakness with the largest network owners.

Together these policies create something more important than competition.

They create community agency.

In Dr. Jekyll’s vision, the schools, townships, health systems, tribes, cooperatives, libraries, and businesses of the Eastern U.P. become participants in the digital economy. They can share resources, pool investments, stack funding, and create value that remains within the region.

The network becomes a commons for innovation.

In Mr. Hyde’s vision, the same communities remain connected but powerless. They pay the tolls, generate the revenue, and create the demand, while decisions are made elsewhere.

And so the lesson of the EUPConnect Collaborative is not really about broadband.

It is about economics.

The question is whether digital infrastructure will amplify local capacity or concentrate power.

Fair wholesale rates prevent dominant carriers from pricing competitors out of existence. Carrier-neutral interconnection prevents any single network owner from controlling the marketplace of connections. Together they interrupt the “rich get richer” cycle and give communities a chance to create, retain, and circulate wealth locally rather than exporting it elsewhere.

In the Eastern Upper Peninsula, that difference is the difference between being connected to the future and owning a piece of it.