With Utah’s project Utopia hogging the headlines, it is easy to overlook some of the smaller notables in the rural broadband space. One such success story is Idaho Falls of where else, but Idaho. The city built a $2 million 50-mile fiber optic ring and has decided to wholesale bandwidth to private companies. Those private companies then resell to corporations and consumers alike. That is an interesting way to foster local growth and local economy. And that is not the only upside – the local businesses are adopting new technologies such as VoIP, and are also becoming more profitable.

bq. Offices can communicate faster with each other. And perhaps the most dramatic outcome has been in the court system. Inmates are now being arraigned on camera from the Bonneville County Jail, saving the sheriff’s office the expense of driving them to and from the courthouse. “It has drastically reduced their costs,” said Mark Reed, information systems supervisor for Idaho Falls Power. (Source: Knight Ridder Wires)

Such an uplifting story!