The article does little to educate the reader on what is proposed.  It should be noted that most of the users cited require data transport to large global regions, i.e. they must connect to the internet backbone that spans the world.  The backbone or long haul links are mostly privately owned in the US.  Likely the long-haul hub in Eugene is run by Centurylink.  While not explicitly stated, it sounds like Eugene/EWEB are going to lay a few miles of fiber just to allow privileged downtown customers to connect the the Centurylink internet backbone connection.  Federal rules require Centurylink to rent connections to operations like the Eugene/Eweb effort.  But here is the rub.  For $4 million, likely comcast or Centurylink would have laid more fiber than Eugene/Eweb will.  Both companies know how to run the physical layer of the internet.  The story writers should have asked how much Centurylink or Comcast would have charged to install the same network.  Could have gotten more for less.