We have covered the small Idaho city of Ammon before, but the people there always seem to be innovating. A few weeks ago, the city took first place with an ultra-high speed app in a National Institute of Justice competition. That utlra-high speed came from the city’s fiber network built for municipal buildings several years ago. The network has since expanded to connect the schools and some businesses.
Now, residents of Ammon might also get to experience high speed Internet. The city is conducting a survey, called Get Fiber Now, to determine interest in building a unique open access network. The first area with a 70% take rate will have 300 homes added to the network.
Ammon’s technology director Bruce Patterson has a plan to make this unlike any other open access networks in the world. The fiber will be partitioned to have multiple services (such as telephone and television) on one strand. Our Christopher Mitchell has called the idea “open access on steroids” and the “best shot at demonstrating what can be done as far as innovation on an open network.” Patterson now has a pilot project of about seven homes connected to the experimental network with symmetrical speed of 1Gbps.
The city intends to have the plans for the open access FTTH network finalized for this next spring and is looking at a 20- to 30- year bond to cover the costs.
Local news coverage has the rest:
This article is apart of MuniNetworks. The original piece can be found here
