Palouse resident eyes fiber optic link for town

Riding on the coat tails of the bigger Port of Whitman grant to run fiber optic cables through the county, one Palouse resident is working to get wider internet broadband service into Palouse.

Former Palouse councilman Mark Bailey has a goal of hooking internet of a higher capacity (a wider broadband) to homes in Palouse. This is possible, he reasoned, if the port’s plan to reach many Whitman County libraries with high-speed internet happens.

“I’ve just been looking at the possibilities for expanding beyond the library- kind of a last-mile-implementation to the home,” Bailey said in an interview with the Gazette March 29.

Bailey has applied to Google’s Fiber to the Home program for Palouse. The program runs fiber optic cables to cities between 500 to 50,000 people. A program like this could be the key to running cables from the library out to Palouse residents, he said.

Part of that application asked questions about the city’s construction, legal and broadband requirements, Bailey said. He tracked down answers to those questions and will also send in his application with results of a survey he conducted with Palouse citizens on their internet use.

Bailey pointed out even if Google turns Palouse down for its fiber program, he still has assembled enough information to apply to other companies which offer high-speed broadband internet.

Bailey works as the IT manager for the city of Pullman and played a part in bringing fiber optic cables to Pullman in a 2007 project.

“The wireless service we have in Palouse right now, you could say, is roughly equivalent to modem service 10 years ago. The types of speed it offers are going to be obsolete within a short number of years,” Bailey said.

Palouse has a population of approximately 1,000 people. First Step out of Moscow is the internet provider to the city.

Bailey pointed out the amount of broadband consumed by current Web sites is growing year by year.

“Fiber at this point in time is the only option that can easily keep up with broadband requirements,” Bailey said.

The Port of Whitman was awarded a $9.8 million grant to bring high-speed internet to many rural towns throughout the county via fiber-optic cables.

Port officials learned that the overall application put together by the Northwest Open Access Network (NOANet) had been selected for funding by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Based in Tacoma, NOANet is a non-profit organization that operates a broadband network which includes more than 1,500 miles of fiber, primarily in rural areas throughout the state.

The port project calls for the fiber to be laid from Spokane. The port had considered placing the fiber along the right-of-way of the 76-mile state-owned Palouse and Lewiston railroad line. Because of some property concerns along the line, the port has also considered planting the line along a highway easement.

In total, NOANet was awarded $84 million to build broadband transmission infrastructure throughout the state. The overall project involves 830 miles of fiber optic cables and eight new microwave transmitters.

Bailey said once he receives responses from residents in Palouse, he’d like to conduct a public meeting to hear residents’ interests.

Then they may begin applying to larger companies interested in bringing service to Palouse.

“We’ll start talking to some local companies about whether that would feasible for them,” Bailey said.

Other small towns in Whitman County have internet connections similar to Palouse.

Oakesdale mayor Dennis Palmer said he had not yet heard about the port’s plan. The Oakesdale library has internet access, he said.

“I’m sure it’s probably the very slow stuff,” Palmer said. Rosalia draws internet service primarily from First Step Internet, including city hall and the library, said council member Nan Konishi.

“It’s better than dial-up but it’s not wonderful,” Konishi said, adding she had been kicked off-line several times in the past week.

Konishi runs a home business, Pine Creek Village, which uses internet.

Internet access in Rosalia is decent, Konishi said, but “a number of people are still connected to dial-up if you aren’t connected to cable.”

Rosalia has roughly 650 residents.