The partnership with UTOPIA will allow Bozeman Fiber to extend the network across the city, passing 22,000 homes and businesses, with plans to extend further out into the more rural parts of Gallatin County down the road. It has also connected 200 commercial customers. At the Broadband Communities 2021 Summit last month, it was announced that Bozeman Fiber, a non-profit organization created by the city to expand high-speed Internet connectivity across the region, has partnered with Utah-based UTOPIA Fiber to build an open access fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network.īozeman Fiber has already built an open access fiber ring, serving city, county, and school facilities. Referred to by some as “Boz Angeles” because of the influx of Californians to the area, this Rocky Mountain city of 53,000, nestled in Gallatin Valley, is about to become even more attractive as a rising tech hub for millennials. UTOPIA Fiber continues to grow and is now exporting its expertise into Bozeman, Montana – one of the fastest-growing cities of its size and often listed among the best places to live in the country. They recognized those were insufficient for their community.” McKinley added at the event: Today, aside from a few Homeowner's Associations (HOAs) and Multi-Dwelling Units (MDUs), West Valley City has been ubiquitously connected to the open access, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network, unlocking the potential of fast, affordable, symmetrical connections for all (see map below).įierce Telecom reports Timmerman as saying that “this is a city where they did have cable and DSL options. This has enabled UTOPIA to move more quickly. This has been in part because the network has been able to leverage its excellent financial position to be the financial backstop for commercial debt without having to go to the bond market or get fiscal pledges from member cities. The work comes as part of a five-year accelerated broadband construction plan, though 75 percent of the progress in West Valley City, according to Timmerman and McKinley, has happened just in the last two years. Local leaders have long recognized the value in completing the build, with residents clamoring for years. Instead, for a myriad of reasons, progress has been made in fits and starts, with a burst in 2009 but most development happening over the last two years. Work offically began on West Valley City in 2004, Executive Director Roger Timmerman and Deputy Director and Chief Marketing Officer Kim McKinley shared at the press event, but expansion efforts have not been steady over the last 18 years. It marks a major milestone, both for residents in the city (who have worked for years to take back control of their information infrastructure) and for the network as a whole (finishing work on one of the original partner cities in the project itself). In an announcement at the Mountain Connect conference last week in Keystone, Colorado, municipally owned open-access network operator UTOPIA Fiber announced it has completed its build in West Valley City, Utah. In 2021, the city announced it had chosen Strata Networks - the largest independent cooperative in Utah - to build and operate the network. Lehi’s partner ISPs have yet to specify tier pricing, but data consistently shows that such open access competition routinely drives down costs and improves service quality in regions where it’s adopted.Īfter hiring Magellan to conduct a feasibility study, the city in 2020 approved financing the network with a bond it hopes will be fully paid off by broadband subscriber revenues. ![]() The Lehi Fiber Network will operate as an open access network, meaning that multiple ISPs will be able to utilize the city’s new infrastructure, providing a much-needed dose of broadband competition to local residents and businesses alike.įive ISPs have already committed to providing service over the city-owned fiber, with the first customers expected to see service sometime in early 2023. utilities using an historic infusion of federal funding to expand affordable broadband connectivity. The network, which city leaders say should take somewhere around three years to complete, will be built on the back of Lehi’s Utilities Department, part of a growing trend of U.S. Lehi City, Utah has broken ground on its new citywide fiber optic broadband network.
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