Idaho is behind on broadband

Access to reliable, affordable broadband is critical in today’s economy, however, hundreds of Idaho communities have been left behind. Our state ranks 43rd for connectivity and 46th for speed. Too many Idahoans lack high-speed Internet service and those that have it pay too much because of weak competition. In May, Governor Little took an important first step, convening a Task Force to study how we improve Idaho’s broadband infrastructure. The Task Force determined that rural Idahoans should be given priority. Folks in communities like Orofino, Grangeville, McCall, Weiser, Challis, Rupert or Malad City have few options. But these communities are precisely the ones that benefit the most from high-quality broadband. The reality is that building broadband infrastructure in low-density areas is expensive. There is no getting around the physics. I would argue that this is not a technology issue but a business and regulatory one. Fortunately, we have the two models that will give us the upper hand: our irrigation infrastructure and our cousins in North Dakota.

Title 43 of the Idaho Code governs the creation and management of non-profit irrigation districts. We have had 100 years to fine-tune this model and it works. The task ahead of us is to update existing regulations for Internet Protocol packets instead of gallons of water. In North dakota, when CenturyLink began selling off unprofitable rural telephone lines, local independent and cooperative phone companies purchased these exchanges. 

There is bipartisan agreement that the broadband status quo is failing Idahoans. As we see in the city of Ammon’s hugely successful fiber broadband system, communities thrive when citizens take charge of essential broadband infrastructure. Let us work together and put the same focus into our broadband infrastructure that we put into our irrigation infrastructure and create the foundation for a $12 billion digital economy that provides opportunity for urban and rural Idahoans alike.

[Todd Achilles is the CEO of Edge Networks.He serves on the advisory board of the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy, and lectures in public policy with a focus on competition and technology.]