City of Ammon to improve public safety

The city of Ammon wants to improve public safety by changing how it alerts the community during emergencies. The city plans to test the system by putting fiber optic connections in 4 to 6 homes.

The technology director for the city, Bruce Patterson, said he will set up equipment either inside or outside the homes who choose to participate. Those homes would test an automated alarm system. For example, current internet services can send customers warnings about outages and other things happening within the network.

“Think of the city’s fiber optic as a multi-lane highway. One of those lanes could be internet, and so if they are interested in that they can get that, through this fiber, and I think that is the motivation for people. For us, as a city, we are interested in public safety. So one of the lanes on the highway is going to be dedicated to public safety, and we are going to do some experimentation. So we are getting feedback from those residents about what they like and don’t like from the service,” said Patterson.

For those participating in the test, there will be no charge for the connection. Patterson hopes the fiber optic pilot project will be completed in June.