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The City of Idaho Falls announced in a press release Monday it has completed its citywide fiber network for residential use. “We’ve not only met our goal of completing the network within four years, but we’ve exceeded our expectations by consistently signing up over 35% of available households each year,” Bear Prairie, general manager of Idaho Falls Power and Idaho Falls Fiber, said in the release. “This is just the beginning — more people are discovering the value of a fiber-optic connection, and we’re excited to see continued growth.
” During an interview with the Post Register, Prairie said a fiber network has been in place for years. In 2000, the city needed fiber installed for services. It was built with a higher capacity than needed because it didn’t cost much to hang additional fiber lines.
So, the dark fiber network — fiber lines not yet transmitting data via light — was available for internet service providers, businesses, school districts, Idaho National Laboratory and others to utilize. Prairie said that by 2013-2014 the city had about 30-40% of businesses in town utilizing the available fiber network. Prairie said users were pleased with the internet, so officials started talking about expanding it for residential use.
In 2018, the city did a pilot project for a residential fiber network. After success, the Idaho Falls City Council unanimously voted to expand the network across the city in 2019. Prairie said much of the new infrastructure was installed with existing electrical lines.
As some electrical lines had reached the end of their lifespan, new electrical lines and fiber lines were installed using the same paths. He said the most expensive construction involved digging and boring. “The credit for this incredibly fast buildout really goes first to the teams that did the work, rain or shine, in both hot and freezing cold weather,” Mayor Rebecca Casper said in the release.
“Our installation teams even invented technology and designed boring equipment to minimize the amount of above-ground digging and all the disruption that causes.” Prairie said all construction totaled about $45 million in costs, including projects shared between electrical and fiber. Fiber alone was roughly $25 million.
Prairie said network construction finished around spring. There are currently over 8,500 customers using the network and six service providers. Prairie said on average there are 200-300 new installations per month.
The city will continue to expand the network as the city grows, and the city encourages more residents to sign up for fiber. “Since we’re not for profit and owned by the community, it’s essentially giving money to yourself,” Prairie said. “.
.. As we get more and more subscribers, we’re able to keep costs down for everybody.
So, the higher the utilization of the infrastructure, the lower we can drive that price.” According to the press release, monthly rates start at $59.89 for high-speed service.
The network has 99.9% uptime and reliability, not slowing down even during peak usage times. “The other thing that I always try to stress to people is you won’t be pushed off to some call center far away,” Prairie said.
“If you have questions on the network, give us a call. Come down to our office. You can talk to our staff.
We have great, bilingual staff.” For more information on the network visit www.idahofallsfiber.
com or the Idaho Falls Fiber office at 140 South Capital..
