Florida is one of the few states whose statutes speak directly to buying internet as a community. Here is what the law contemplates, what your declaration has to say, and what a board should check before it signs anything.
Most association boards approach bulk internet as though they were inventing something. In Florida they are not. The Condominium Act already anticipates an association contracting for communications services on behalf of the whole community and treating the cost as a common expense — provided a few specific conditions are met.
This page walks through those conditions in plain language. It is general information rather than legal advice, and the language in your own declaration governs. Every association should have its counsel review a bulk agreement before signing. We are glad to work alongside your attorney and your manager, and we do this regularly.
Section 718.115(1)(d) of the Florida Statutes provides that, if it is provided for in the declaration, the cost of communications services as defined in chapter 202, information services, or Internet services obtained under a bulk contract is a common expense. That single sentence is the legal on-ramp: it is what allows the association to buy once, on behalf of everyone, and assess the cost the same way it assesses landscaping or insurance.
Two further points sit alongside it. The statute contemplates that such a contract must run for at least two years. And a contract entered into by the board may be cancelled by a majority of the voting interests present at the next regular or special meeting of the association — a meaningful protection for owners, and one boards should understand rather than fear.
Florida associations are working through structural integrity reserve study and reserve funding requirements on a compressed schedule, and boards are under real pressure to justify every recurring line item. We want to be precise about what bulk telecom does and does not do here: it does not fund reserves, and any broker who implies otherwise is selling you something.
What it does is reduce what residents individually pay each month for service they are already buying, and in many structures return a recurring share to the association. At a moment when assessments are rising, a change that lowers an owner’s total monthly cost is one of the few pieces of good news a board can deliver. We wrote more about that timing in what the reserve deadline means for your telecom line item.
The association contracts a single community-wide service at a wholesale rate rather than leaving every owner to buy retail. Residents typically see materially lower cost and faster speeds than they can obtain individually; the carrier funds the network build, so there is no capital outlay from the association; and the community earns a recurring share of the plan. Typical performance runs $120–$220 per unit per year in NOI. We are vendor-neutral — not owned by any carrier — so our role is to map every network that reaches your buildings and run them against each other.
Usually not. Many declarations predate the services in question, and associations routinely amend to add the authority. Your counsel can advise on the approval threshold in your documents. It is worth resolving before you negotiate, not after.
The statute contemplates that a contract made by the board may be cancelled by a majority of the voting interests present at the next regular or special meeting. In practice this is an argument for bringing owners along early — a bulk agreement that lowers residents’ bills is usually an easy case to make when it is made openly.
Nothing upfront. The carrier funds the build and our brokerage is performance-based — see the full cost breakdown and how the process works.
Working in a specific market? See bulk internet in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville, or across Florida statewide. For non-condo communities, see our HOA bulk internet guide.
We’ll review your declaration language, project per-unit savings and association revenue, and lay out the options — free.