Speeding Up the Country – By Susan Milligan (US News) / May 28 2021
Joe Biden is looking to enlist the government in a game-changing modernization of broadband internet, an effort some liken to FDR’s sweeping crusade for rural electrification.
In the latter part of the 2000s, Ammon, Idaho, a city of 16,000 people in the southeastern part of the state, was experiencing a familiar problem for small communities in rural areas: The internet access was inadequate and not affordable enough to serve the people living there. And it got personal for the city when officials looked into connecting two city buildings with a high-speed connection.
The phone company said it couldn’t do it. The local cable company said, sure – but it’ll cost you: $80,000 up front to put the fiber in and $1,000 a month for the service.
So Ammon went it alone, contracting to build its own fiber-optic cable, at a cost of $12,000. Since then, the city has made creative use of local financing mechanisms to offer broadband service to all residents and businesses in the area. Today, the city has gotten on the technology map with a startling distinction: With an average internet access rate of $9.99 a month, Ammon is the most affordable place in America for broadband service, according to a report by the Open Technology Institute.
“It proved to us that we could do it ourselves,” says Bruce Patterson, who is transitioning from his job as technology director for the city of Ammon to work for an operation that is helping other cities replicate the Idaho city model. “This isn’t about competition. This is about an essential service,” he adds, noting a city council resolution declaring broadband as critical to the community’s economic development and the health and education of its residents.
