Community Broadband Manager Jerry Smith
By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
On Tuesday, Nov. 11, Los Alamos’ cellphone and internet activity screeched to a halt – again. In the last 12 months there have been four outages with the same culprit, a cut fiber optic line.
This time, however, the solution is not only identified but is being implemented. And the solution’s name is the Community Broadband Project.
During Tuesday’s Los Alamos County Council meeting, council unanimously approved an ordinance that authorizes the issuance of Gross Receipts Tax (GRT) improvement revenue bonds that will not exceed $40 million. While the bonds are also designated for public buildings, facilities and infrastructure, the majority will pay for the Community Broadband Project, which has a $35 million price tag.
“At last night’s Council meeting, County Council unanimously approved the issuance of bonds for a Broadband Communications System to provide a County-owned, open access network,” Council Chair Theresa Cull told the Los Alamos Daily Post Wednesday morning. “Open access means that businesses and community members will be able to choose from multiple vendors, which should result in competitive pricing and potential savings in the future.”
Community Broadband Manager Jerry Smith said the broadband project offers the solution to the County’s outages because it includes a second fiber optic line that the San Ildefonso Pueblo is installing.
“The benefit to the County, meaning anyone in the County, is there starts being options for making outages either minimized or avoided depending on where the outage occurs,” Smith said. “The idea was to have a second fiber line with internet going on both lines so if one line fails, the internet goes to the second line. The County is helping to enable this by getting a second line but it is up to providers to get on the second line … any business that has connectivity as a critical feature in their business, they have to go to the trouble and expense to have two internet feeds … so if damage happens to one path, internet would be going to the second one.”
To take advantage of this secondary line will be up to the internet providers, Smith said.
Providers will need to make arrangements with the owner of the fiber line, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Smith said, and then resell it to customers.
Smith said internet providers are aware of the project and that he is in weekly contact with San Ildefonso Pueblo staff to get updates on the project. Smith said he isn’t aware of any provider who has submitted paperwork for the second fiber optic line.
He added he will continue to reach out to vendors to inform them that the second line is available and to contact Pueblo officials. As far as internet customers, Smith said they can reach out to their providers and inquire if they are going to take advantage of this additional line.
The additional fiber optic line is just one piece of the Community Broadband Project.
The other piece is to build and operate the fiber-optic network to all homes and businesses. The network will be built to 10,014 locations, or passings, and will build the portion from the curb to homes, or drops. The project cost allows for doing 60 percent of drops, to be done when a customer orders service. The vendor will operate the network, not the internet service provider. Four to six internet service providers will be contracted on the open access network. Residents who order the service choose which internet provider they want.
Smith said the project will be done in phases. The first phase includes White Rock. The first customers are expected to be able to begin signing up for service by late next summer and the entire project is expected to take three to four years.
The project will include installing half the network on existing power poles and burying the other half of it, Smith said.
Customers interested in getting on the Community Broadband Network will see that it will be heavily promoted on the County’s website. Smith explained a link for the project will be on the County’s dashboard. Residents can enter their addresses to see if they are available for the network and which internet service providers (ISPs) are available at their address, as well as the speeds and the pricing. They can then click to order, choose an ISP and set up an account. After creating an order Smith said a County team will extend the fiber line from the street to the customer’s home as well as inside the residence.
Customer prices for the Community Broadband Project were discussed last November during a council meeting, but Smith said while the cost is expected to increase slightly, it is just within a few dollars. Customers will continue to receive a single bill from their internet providers.
The price will vary depending on the selected internet speed. During the 2024 November council meeting, it was stated that the price will range from $50.50-$54.79 for 250 Mbps up to $85.02-$100.69 for 50 Gbps for residences. For commercial customers, the estimated prices ranged from $75.79-$88.39 for 250 Mbps up to $188.88-$239.17 for 50 Gbps.
Smith said the extra cost may be worth the peace of mind it offers.
“That is an extra cost, but it is worth peace of mind,” he said. “Outages will be reduced or minimized. For Community Broadband we are covering 100 percent of the addresses that are in the County, and we are going to build fiber through the three-to-four-year timeline that will pass every resident and business. Once construction is completed in your neighborhood, you will receive information in multiple ways … (and can) see what options are available for service.”
Smith added that, “Some of the benefits are that it is basically better internet and better pricing per internet. Some users are happy enough with their current service, but most users surveyed expressed several reasons for not being happy with their current providers, mainly because the service would go out and they were not getting the speeds they were paying for, partly because the technology that is currently in place is not current technology. It has outlived its lifetime. The technology that is most future-proof is fiber optics and that is what we are installing … so it is a great long-term investment, and pricing will be significantly less even with it being a faster, better option … than what is provided by the current providers …”
“We look forward to this being a very good project for the community,” he said. “While there might be some temporary pain … it will certainly be worth it in the long term.”