County Approves 40 Million Bond for Community Broadband Project

Los Alamos County took a major step toward a locally controlled internet network when the County Council on November 20 approved an ordinance authorizing Gross Receipts Tax improvement revenue bonds not to exceed 40 million dollars. While the bond package can fund public buildings and infrastructure, the bulk of the money is designated for the Community Broadband Project, a roughly 35 million dollar plan to build a county owned open access fiber optic network.

The approval follows repeated service interruptions this year. On November 11 cellphone and internet activity in the county was halted by a cut fiber optic line, the fourth outage with that cause in the past 12 months. County leaders and broadband managers say the new network and an added fiber route will reduce the risk of single point failures that have left residents and businesses disconnected.

Council Chair Theresa Cull described the open access design as a way to expand consumer choice. "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," she said.

Community Broadband Manager Jerry Smith said the project includes a second fiber optic line being installed by San Ildefonso Pueblo, and that redundancy is central to the outage remedy. "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. He explained that internet traffic could fail over to a separate line if one path is damaged, but providers and businesses must take steps to use both feeds.

The project will build fiber to 10,014 passings and include curb to home drops, with the budget covering about 60 percent of drops at installation and the remainder completed as customers order service. A vendor will operate the physical network while four to six internet service providers will resell retail service on the open access platform. The first phase will focus on White Rock, with initial customer sign up expected by late next summer and full build out projected over three to four years. Construction will use existing power poles for roughly half the network and bury the other half.

Smith cautioned there will be transitional disruption while construction proceeds but stressed long term benefits. "That is an extra cost, but it is worth peace of mind," he said. "Some of the benefits are that it is basically better internet and better pricing per internet." The County plans to offer an online dashboard where residents can check availability by address, compare providers, speeds and pricing, and place service orders once areas are ready.