MOUNTAIN HOME, Idaho — Some neighbors in Mountain Home signed up for fiber optic internet years ago, but many are still waiting to access the high-speed service.
The Mountain Home fiber optic internet project started over six years ago as an idea to connect the city’s water wells and wastewater system to reliable internet. The idea eventually grew to include residential neighborhoods.
"Sometimes government works slow, so we can get it right," Mountain Home Mayor Rich Sykes said.
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The city wants fiber internet to be considered basic infrastructure that people can count on, similar to roads or water. Fiber is a type of internet that is much faster and more reliable than traditional Wi-Fi.
"We felt that during COVID broadband was an essential service," Mayor Sykes said.
The city started the rollout with Local Improvement District One (LID1) in select neighborhoods. However, the initial project faced delays, and with some former city council members not sold on the initiative, expansion is currently on pause.
"It took us a really long time to do the first LID1. We wanted to do it within 1 year, and it took us about 2 years, but we started out with a new utility, new people, new everything, and so those were some of the hard lessons learned," Mayor Sykes said.
The city recently held a workshop to clear up confusion surrounding the project.
"There was a lot of misnomers of spending tax dollars, right?" Mayor Sykes said, "And I think once we did the workshop, we were able to really show the true budget, the dollars and things of that nature."
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Resident James Newton opted in for fiber years ago and has been waiting for faster internet ever since. He currently uses wireless internet, which he says can be unreliable, especially during times when more people are online. He noted his speed drops significantly from what he experiences around noon on a Thursday compared to Thursday evening.
"If it's on the weekend, then it drops a lot more because you have a lot more people, kids are out of school, you have a lot more people using the internet," Newton said.
Newton uses the internet to stay in touch with his family.
"Being as our kids are gone, we use it to keep up with them. I'll game with our grandkids, I'll do some gaming with our older boy that lives in Vegas,” Newton said. “I'm not good at it, but it's just a way to stay connected and communicate with them because we don't live close to them.”
While new homes in Mountain Home are already hooked up to the fiber network, older homes can face higher costs. If a home is more than 100 feet from a line, the price can go well beyond the base $3,600.
"I could be looking at closer to triple that, over $10,000. It shouldn't take something like that for a resident to pay that kind of money to get fiber," Newton said.
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Newton hopes the city can keep the project going, and the mayor is working with the city council to make that happen.
"I'm hopefully optimistic that they'll go, OK, let's try LID2 and let's see how that works,” Mayor Sykes said. “ I don't know of anybody that's on the platform that is upset with the service they're getting.”
If you're interested in the service, you can opt in on the Mountain Home website.
