Idaho Falls gets high in fiber

In the boom of the late 1990s, there was widespread belief among economic-development people that high-speed Internet access was essential to eastern Idaho’s prosperity.

There also was a general sense that Idaho Falls was lacking bandwidth. To put it metaphorically, the roads weren’t wide enough to carry all the traffic the region would need to be competitive.

By PAUL MENSER
Post Register

(Thanks to HeadwatersNews.org for passing this along- Russ)

http://www.headwatersnews.org/pr.idfiber.html

That isn’t the case anymore.

In the past five years, the city of Idaho Falls has strung 50 miles of fiber-optic cable in a ring that stretches from Sage Lakes Golf Course to the Gem State Hydroelectric Dam.

The $2 million network was originally conceived as a tool for the city and Bonneville County to increase efficiency and cut costs.

It has done that by eliminating dial-up modems and establishing faster Internet access.

Offices can communicate faster with one another. And perhaps the most dramatic outcome has been in the court system. Inmates are now being arraigned on camera from the Bonneville County Jail, saving the sheriff’s office the expense of driving them to and from the courthouse.

"It has drastically reduced their costs," said Mark Reed, information systems supervisor for Idaho Falls Power.

But a byproduct of the fiber-optic network has been that the city can now wholesale Internet bandwidth to private companies, recouping the costs such as building the system. Companies such as MicroServ, FreTel and NSI Communications have signed on offering high-speed, fiber-optic connections to their contract customers.

"There’s a lot of bandwidth out there right now," said Doug Bird, principal of NSI Communications, which offers Cisco voice-over-IP service to local customers.

Using special phones, voice-over-IP users are able to have local phone service, long distance and Internet access all run on the same strands of fiber at considerable savings.

Dependability is still a factor (traditional phone customers expect dial tone 99.99 percent of the time, and voice-over-IP customers can still lose service for lengths of time they might find unacceptable), but it’s getting better.

Bird said the city’s fiber-optic system has offered NSI another option for its customers, who would otherwise be limited to Qwest’s system. Bird is careful not to disparage Qwest, with which his company frequently partners not only in Idaho Falls but also in Boise; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Salt Lake City.

But more fiber options make for lower costs, and in Idaho Falls, circuit costs have dropped dramatically, he said.

That it is managed by Idaho Falls Power is no accident or coincidence. It is being managed like a utility, and the city wants no say in how the fiber is used.

The fiber ring cost the city less than was originally thought, and much less than what it would have cost a private company to string, because the city’s electric utility already had the power poles and rights-of-way in place.

"We’re not in it to make a profit," said City Attorney Dale Storer, who has been drafting a fiber ordinance, officially setting rates and prices, for the City Council to vote on this month. "Our profit is to enhance the economic viability of the city."

Travis Johnson of MicroServ called the city’s monthly wholesale charge of $1,340 for two fiber strands reasonable and the service capable.

"Everybody that’s an ISP (Internet service provider) needs to look at it as a possible route," he said.

At $350 a month, fiber is more expensive than the wireless Internet service MicroServ continues to offer for $50 a month. But for some businesses, having a high-speed connection makes a lot of sense.

"We’re not going to get rich from it, but it’s enabled us to provide another service, and it’s profitable," he said.

On the retail end, Hart’s Tux and Gowns now has a voice-over-IP system through NSI that allows it direct communication between its store on 17th Street and its plant downtown.

The system allows the store to network all its computers with its server’s software and talk on the phone at the same time.

"We can look up orders anywhere," said John Hart, the owner of the company, which also has shops in Casper, Wyo., and Twin Falls.

Randy Kern, president of DataWav.Net, said he is looking for the right customer before hooking up to the city’s fiber ring, but he figures it will happen eventually.

A former chairman of the Eastern Idaho Economic Development Council, Kern praised the city for building the fiber ring.

"I think 10 years from now we’ll be glad we did it," he said. "It’s an efficient and quick method to deliver bandwidth."

Staff writer Paul Menser can be reached at 542-6752 or via e-mail at [email protected].