Charles City administrator: Still working on funding, partnership for municipal broadband utility

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Is a proposal to expand fiber optic broadband access to Charles City businesses potentially the answer to what many see as a more general need across the entire community for high speed internet?

Mayor Dean Andrews expressed hope that could be the case, asking Omnitel Communications representatives at the City Council meeting Monday evening how long it would take to install fiber throughout the city.

Those representatives seemed a little surprised by that question, saying they didn’t have a timeline for that and they were concentrating on business areas right now.

Later in the week, the Press asked City Administrator Steve Diers what role this Omnitel proposal might play regarding Charles City’s broadband needs.

He said Omnitel is looking at specific areas of the city, and discussions are still continuing between the city and a potential partner for a community-wide broadband utility.

“I don’t know if what Omnitel is proposing, at least immediately, impacts that or makes that not viable,” Diers said about a municipal broadband utility. “If they build out enough, I guess, then at some point a separate project might not be feasible.”

He said Omnitel was going to build as demand dictates, and as the company has funding available.

“I guess it solves problems for some,” Diers said.

After the Charles City Telecommunications Utility Board was unable to acquire suitable funding in the fall of 2020 to finance a municipal broadband utility, it began looking at other options, including seeking a partner to help finance and run a fiber network.

Omnitel was one of several businesses that responded to a request for proposals by the telecom board, but no agreement has been reached with any potential partner.

“Omnitel has some ability to build out on their own and we really don’t have the financing put together to have a partnership,” Diers said. “As we know, businesses and people are clamoring for service, and they need it, so Omnitel is trying to address that need.”

Diers said work continues to find a way to put together a municipal broadband utility.

“It’s going to be some type of partnership — some type of partnership between the municipal telecom and some type of private entity,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of discussions with various entities and one now is still gaining steam, I guess you could say.”

Diers said the city is continuing to work with Dave Fridley from FARR Communications as he negotiates with this potential partner on how the project might work, how much the potential partner would be willing to borrow for the project and how much the city telecom would have to borrow.

“There’s supposed to be some upcoming meetings here in the next week, two weeks, to follow up on that,” he said.

“We’ve had every couple of weeks touching base with some of the lead finance people, the banking group on the city side of it, just to try and find a way forward. So we are talking with a potential private partner that is interested in coming in, and he doesn’t seem to be fazed by what he is seeing, by what Omnitel is looking to do,” Diers said.

“So we’ll see where that goes. It is still percolating there, waiting to come up with something to propose back to the telecom board so we can have something to talk about.”