|
|
Renewed efforts to bring new higher-speed
internet service for Boundary County |
|
August 14, 2015 |
by McKenzie MacDonald
Are you thinking your internet is too slow?
Providing Boundary County with the fastest and
most reliable internet service possible has been
an ongoing project for the past seven years. In
2008, the City of Sandpoint attempted to bring a
fiber network to the Idaho Panhandle region,
including Bonners Ferry. “A fiber network
supplies internet service over a network of
optical fibers,” said David Sims of Boundary
Economic Development Council. Optical fibers are
thin fibers made by drawing glass or plastic
into a diameter that resembles the thickness of
a single human hair. “The advantage of using
optical fibers over copper wires,” said Mr.
Sims, “is that the optical fibers can carry much
more information, enabling much higher data
transmission speeds.” These data-transmitting
glass fibers would be attached to the city’s
power poles.
The attempt to provide this service soon evolved
into the idea that this network would be shared
by the entire region, and be owned by the
Panhandle Area Council (PAC), an economic
development agency that supports Idaho’s five
northern counties. The service of this network
would, therefore, include Sandpoint, Dover,
Kootenai, Ponderay and Bonners Ferry. To make
this project happen, applications were made for
federal grants. However, these applications and
other attempts to fund the network project were
unsuccessful.
Fast-forward to 2015. In the last few months,
efforts toward completing this project have been
renewed. Two individuals involved with the
previous 2008 attempt to build an optical fiber
system contacted Ting, a company that builds
fiber networks in cities. In early July, Ting
traveled to north Idaho and met with some of our
local officials to discuss potentially making
this effort a reality. “One great advantage that
Ting offers is that they are willing to
construct the network themselves, requiring no
financial commitment or obligation from the
cities,” said Mr. Sims. Ting’s services also
include a symmetrical gigabit option. This
option allows for 1,000 Mbps of data transfer,
which is much faster than the speeds offered by
Bonners Ferry’s current internet provider.
While the goal of this effort is to serve the
entire region, making it possible for Bonners
Ferry to be included in the program has proven
difficult. “There is an internet point of
presence (POP) in Sandpoint which functions as
an ‘on-ramp’ for the internet—we don’t have one
in Bonners Ferry,” said Mr. Sims. To bring this
network to our community, we will have to gain
access to Sandpoint’s POP by constructing a
section of fiber between Bonners Ferry and
Sandpoint which will increase Ting’s costs
associated with constructing Bonners Ferry’s
section of the project.
However, any extra cost brought to the table due
to this connecting fiber between Bonners Ferry
and Sandpoint could possibly be balanced out by
the simple fact that Bonners Ferry owns its own
power company. “Construction of the network
requires agreements with the municipalities to
use the rights of ways and it also requires
agreements with the power companies to attach
fiber to their poles,” said Mr. Sims. “Bonners
Ferry has the advantage of owning its own power
company, which should make the pole use
agreement simpler and possibly less costly.”
Because Bonners Ferry electricity reaches even
those outside of the city limits, Boundary
Economic Development Council is optimistic that
this internet service will also reach customers
in the Three Mile and Moyie Springs areas. “We
are hoping that the project can include most of
the footprint of the electric system, not just
the city limits,” said Mr. Sims.
Although Ting has not yet committed to the
project, Boundary Economic Development Council
remains excited about what this new fiber could
bring to this community. The purpose of the
council is to promote infrastructure and
improvements that will allow this community to
beneficially grow and develop. “A fiber network
in our community is the type of infrastructure
that will provide improved quality of life for
our citizens, and will provide the tools our
local businesses need to compete locally and
globally,” Mr. Sims said. |
|
|
|
Questions or comments about this
article?
Click here to e-mail! |
|
|
|
|
