City Council votes to extend fiber network to entire city

High-speed fiber is coming to all of Idaho Falls.

In a unanimous vote on Thursday at a special city council meeting, Thursday evening, the Idaho Falls City Council moved to continue the expansion of the city’s fiber network to provide high-speed broadband access throughout the entire City of Idaho Falls.

In September of 2018, the city council directed Idaho Falls Fiber to test the economic feasibility of leveraging the existing conduits and infrastructure of Idaho Falls Power to install more fiber-optic lines in residential areas.

The pilot project connected its first customers in March of this year with the final phase of construction finishing in September.

Idaho Falls officials have been gathering data and evaluating the costs of expanding the high-speed fiber network through the rest of the community.

At the start of the program, city leaders were excited about the opportunity to work with local internet providers to bring broadband to the community.

The build-out of the city-wide network is projected to take place in the next four years, starting with the areas that can be built the soonest to cover the most customers who are asking for the fiber utility.

The network will be built in areas that are served by Idaho Falls Power, which is a not-for-profit electric utility owned by the city and its residents.

KIFI 2019