Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

This seems like a fun project to work on but what is the financial game here? Does he invest in building the network, operate at a loss and then sell to someone like Comcast? I assume building a remote fiber network that can reach 600 houses has to incur huge CapEx (way more than $2.6M right?) and at $50/mo a very long payback period.

However it works, pretty awesome project, kudos.

It is government subsidized. He just wanted good internet in the area.