High-tech network connects towns-Broadband service takes leap in S. Idaho

It wasn´t that long ago that guys like Brent Greener couldn´t work in towns like Burley.

Even if they grew up there, and their families were there.

Gregory Hahn
The Idaho Statesman

If they worked with computers — and Greener did, at companies as big as IBM and
Hewlett-Packard — they were out of luck.

But that´s been slowly changing, and the transition took a big step Thursday morning. Even
though guys like Greener, who owns the Greener Valley Computer Store in his home town of
Burley, may not have noticed.

A coalition of 12 rural communications cooperatives flipped the switch on the first leg of what
they´re calling Syringa Networks — the first broadband fiber-optic network to serve much of
rural southern Idaho.

“You´re not going to see an immediate change in service availability, but in reliability and
cost,” said Charlie Creason, president of Syringa and the Rupert-based Project Mutual
Telephone Co-op.

He likened the extension of broadband connectivity to that of the railroad and the interstate
highway system.

Though phone internet service exists just about everywhere, and high-speed DSL is available
even in towns like Rupert and Burley, the small co-ops only have so much capacity left,
Creason said.

“We´re running out of bandwidth,” he said.

But with the Syringa network, that will change.

Thursday´s switch connected Boise through Mountain Home, Glenns Ferry, Buhl and Rupert,
through the tiny Cassia County towns of Albion and Malta.

It´s just the start of the $60 million project, which will eventually, hopefully, connect through
Malad City, Swan Valley, Island Park, Challis, Stanley and McCall — and all parts in between.

Almost all the tiny glass tubes — 48 of them, each the size of a human hair, and protected by
a plastic covering — will be laid by the end of the summer.

To give you some sense of the capacity being created, just two of those tiny cables are even
being used so far. And Creason said the whole system can be juiced up another 120 percent,
just by adding technology cards at several key locations around the network.

The cards can turn the light beams, which carry information in a fiber-optic system, into a
stream of different colors.

Each color can carry its own set of information. As Creason puts it, it´s like a rainbow, and
each color of rainbow carries different data.

Greener, who works with individuals and companies that need networking help, said the small
businesses cropping up are willing to pay for the high-speed connections they need to stay
competitive.

But Creason said the network should let them pay less.

Once the southern Idaho loop is complete, consumers in Arco shouldn´t have to pay any
more than those in Mountain Home or Glenns Ferry.

“It should eliminate the penalty of distance,” Creason said.

By the end of the summer, the lines should be laid from Council in the northwest, through
Boise and southwest Idaho and around to Challis.

The only part of the loop in question at the moment is a stretch through the mountains from
Galena Summit by Stanley through Ketchum.

The permits to cut the trench, Creason said, are hard to secure there.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who was on hand for a kick-off party at Syringa´s Boise headquarters,
said the network “truly puts Idaho in the 21st century.”

He touted the enhanced investment tax credits that helped the network´s investors secure the
money they needed to start laying the fiber optics.

And he said the possibilities for development in scenic rural Idaho are promising.

“You can do business anywhere in the world and live in one of these areas,” he said. “How
can you go wrong?”

To offer story ideas or comments, contact Gregory Hahn
[email protected] or 377-6425

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