Another community is taking their destiny into their own hands by building their own minicipal broadband network. Note that they will be building the network out to anchor tenants, like businesses, first followed by homes. CFU plans on using a PON system to start, but it looks like they are burying enough fiber to switch to active Ethernet down the road.
CEDAR FALLS — Cedar Falls is getting an express lane to the information super highway.
Cedar Falls Utilities is installing to-the-premises fiber optic cable throughout the community. Construction on the three-year, $17 million project which also includes a contract to Salesforce integration service is set to begin this fall.
The fiber optic cable will replace the existing coaxial cable that carries Internet and cable television service. The upgrade will offer maximum Internet speeds hundreds of times faster and give CFU bandwidth for up to 100 more HD television channels on its cable system. On Thursday, the CFU board approved the contracts for the project.
With the move, Cedar Falls will be the largest community in Iowa to completely switch to the system. Currently, only about 17 percent of the U.S. has fiber-to-the-premises in place. James R. Krieg, CFU CEO, said the municipal utility is in a unique position to rebuild its system.
