Idaho's high-speed highway is a hit-and-miss proposition

BYLINE: Elaine Williams

Jay Engstrom lives 11/2 miles from Qwest's central office in Boise but he can't get high-speed Internet from the telephone company.

The cable his developer installed for the subdivision is too small to provide the service, Engstrom says. But unlike some small-town Idaho residents, he has other options such as satellite, wireless and cable.

Engstrom's situation shows how complicated it is to provide high-speed Internet throughout Idaho. "It meanders all over and it's incredibly strange, the way it works,'' says Engstrom, deputy director for Idaho Commerce and Labor in Boise.

The office was responsible for distributing $5 million in matching money from the state in 2006 to increase the number of rural Idahoans who had access to high-speed Internet, and has faced questions about the decisions it made.

Chief among them are why telecommunications providers only had a matter of weeks to apply and why the majority of the money went to Qwest and Verizon, two of the state's largest telephone companies.

The program extended high-speed Internet access to almost 50,000 residents by giving private companies half of what they needed to make improvements.

"We were trying to get this money out as quickly as possible so people could get to work on it,'' Engstrom says.

One of the complications was that initially the state wasn't going to cover satellite Internet, but after receiving comments chose to include it, Engstrom says.

Allowing satellite made it impossible to have criteria restricting the money to places that didn't have high-speed Internet since technically almost any Idaho resident has access to some sort of satellite high-speed Internet, Engstrom says.

Qwest and Verizon cover the majority of Idaho residents, Engstrom says.

The future of subsidies to help rural communities isn't clear.

The proposed budget of former Gov. Jim Risch contained a continuation of the subsidies that didn't make it into the budget offered by Gov. C.L. (Butch) Otter.

Jim Schmit, Qwest's top Idaho executive, believes that about 90 percent of the state now has access to high-speed Internet. "It did what it was intended to do,'' Schmit says. "It doesn't necessarily mean it should be done again.''

It's possible millions in block grants could be tapped to meet the remaining needs, says Jon Hanian, a spokesman for the governor's office. "In those rural or isolated areas, it's not cost effective for (private providers) and there's no incentive.''

Schmit believes a better use of additional subsidies would be for application of the infrastructure to help schools improve distance learning, hospitals to expand telemedicine and perhaps even make it possible for more residents of Boise to work at home to reduce traffic congestion, Schmit says.

State Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, would like to see the subsidies return, along with a state office that would coordinate efforts to improve connectivity.

It's possible that in many cases the resources are more available than they seem if someone had information about how to use them, Rusche says.

A Montana town got high-speed Internet access by linking with a U.S. Forest Service monitoring station for precipitation or wildlife monitoring that was connected with a satellite, Rusche says. "This is the economy of the 21st century. We can't afford not to do it.''

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Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 743-9600, ext. 261.