(FORTUNE Magazine) – With fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, Springville, Utah, is about as sleepy as it gets. But in broadband terms, it's screaming with activity: Almost 40% of folks here have Net access that moves at the face-melting speed of 100 mbps. It's all the work of AirSwitch, an Internet network company based in nearby Orem. AirSwitch was formed in 1998 by a gang of local techies who were sick of waiting for high-speed access and simply strung cables house-to-house. Soon they figured out how to mass-produce their technique and rolled it out in Springville and nearby American Fork. "People in the town regularly swap the entire contents of their hard drives because it's so fast," says Stan Kramer, AirSwitch's VP of marketing. "And there's a whole network of housewives who use it for videoconferencing." Feeling cheated? AirSwitch is planning to roll out its service nationally, town by town.

--C.T.