Coeur d’Alene Rethinks Broadband Plans

The Coeur d’Alene (Idaho) City Council agreed with two local internet providers to back off a proposal to subsidize a Wisconsin company that wants to provide high-speed internet to the city. In a unanimous vote, council members stopped short of cutting franchise fees for the use of its utility right of way for Madison-based TDS Metrocom, which proposes building a one Gigabit broadband system in the city within three years. The proposal asked the city to pay back to TDS part of its franchise fees, a total of $1 million over 10 years, to help the company with the costs of a speedy build-out of its fiber optic transmission system. But local internet providers who already provide service to Coeur d’Alene objected to the idea of subsidizing a competitor.