Ammon, a town of 14,000 in southeast Idaho, has been incrementally building an open access, fiber optic network that has connected community anchor institutions and is starting to become available to local businesses. Ammon Technology Director Bruce Patterson joins us to explain how the community has moved forward with its model for improving Internet access.
They first sought some stimulus support for the network but were not selected. But in the process, they had set aside the match funding and found that it would be less expensive to link municipal buildings across town with their own fiber rather than leasing from an existing firm.
It is worth emphasizing that Ammon has no municipal electric utility, but the water utility has been a key participant in the network. In fact, much of Ammon’s success has to be attributed to the willingness of multiple departments to work together, supportive and thoughtful city council members, and a Technology Director willing to think outside the limits of how things had traditionally been done.
We’ve been covering Ammon for a few years, those stories are available here.
We want your feedback and suggestions for the show – please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 25 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.
Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.
Thanks to Fit and the Conniptions for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.