City Council approves Idaho Falls Power fiber network pilot program

By RYAN SUPPE rsuppe@postregister.com  Sep 28, 2018

Idaho Falls Power is moving forward with a residential high-speed fiber optic pilot program in partnership with UTOPIA Fiber, a Utah-based fiber optic network agency. The City Council unanimously approved the plan Thursday. UTOPIA Fiber will apply to Idaho Falls Power the same rates that it charges its Utah members for engineering and construction services, according to City Council documents. The program involves installing — or connecting previously installed — fiber optic cables, creating a network designed for increased bandwidth and data transfer speeds. The pilot will test and examine the cost of a high-speed fiber optic network for residents and businesses, starting with a designated pilot program area in Idaho Falls. A fiber optic line (a stretched strand of glass that transmits data through light) is a superior method of data transfer to electrical wiring because it can carry more data at increased speeds. Councilman John Radford said that, with electrical systems increasingly tied to the Internet, a fiber-optic system is a necessity for a modern public utility. ”We need to have the ability to really quickly interact with those things,” he said. According to Bear Prairie, general manager of Idaho Falls Power and Idaho Falls Fiber, the fiber network pilot program is a response to the growing need for increased internet bandwidth. ”Need and access of broadband connectivity is quickly becoming a utility-type structure,” Prairie said. “We want to make sure that everybody has access to the bandwidth that they need.” The city of Ammon built a utility-style fiber optic network in 2016, which is currently connected to 350 residential and commercial addresses, according to Bruce Patterson, technology director for the city of Ammon. UTOPIA (Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency), a community-owned, not-for-profit agency, provides a fiber optic network for nearly a dozen Utah cities. It will help design, operate and manage the Idaho Falls’ fiber network, Prairie said. The partnership with Idaho Falls Power will be the first time UTOPIA Fiber has worked on a project outside of Utah, according to a news release from the agency. “As the largest open-access network in the country, there’s nobody else with the experience and expertise that we have,” said Roger Timmerman, UTOPIA Fiber’s executive director, in the release. The boundaries for the pilot program have not yet been finalized, but the general area includes numbered streets between 17th Street and Tautphaus Park and some residential areas south of Sunnyside Road. Residents in the pilot program area will receive a letter of notification in early October.

“The reason we picked the areas that we did is we needed an area that was close to our existing backbone of fiber rings,” Prairie said. “We need to locate near that existing infrastructure.” The city has existing fiber optic lines — used by a number of business — but those lines don’t reach residential areas. Existing lines will be connected to the new network. Idaho Falls Fiber will run new fiber lines through existing overhead and underground power lines. Using existing infrastructure allows the project to be completed at a fraction of the cost any other company would face, Prairie said. Once the system is built, Idaho Falls Power will rely on partnerships with local companies to provide services, such as internet service, on the network. Prairie stressed that Idaho Falls Power will not become an internet service provider, it is simply building the network infrastructure that private businesses can utilize. “Idaho Falls Fiber is going to be doing what we’re really good at, the same thing we’ve done on the power side,” Prairie said. “We already have hundreds of miles of infrastructure we can leverage, by also following the same paths with fiber to drive the cost down and really bring this connectivity out to the local residents.”

Idaho Falls Power officials will be meeting with internet services providers next month to discuss future use of its fiber network. Residents will not have to pay for the installation of the fiber network in their area. However, they will have to pay a fee to connect to the network in addition to the regular cost of internet service from their internet service provider. The pilot program is scheduled to end in spring 2019. At that time, Idaho Falls Power will decide whether to extend the network citywide, Prairie said. There will be an open house with pilot program participants and other interested parties on Oct. 23 at Taylorview Middle School.

Reporter Ryan Suppe can be reached at 208-542-6762. Follow him on Twitter: @salsuppe.