Montana Opticom Bets On Internet in Broadwater County
Author: MT43 News Staff Reporter
Montana Opticom Bets On Internet in Broadwater County MT43 News Staff Reporter Montana Opticom, Inc., the small Bozeman-based internet service provider, is laying down a big bet on Broadwater County.
As approved by Gov. Greg Gianforte last week, Montana Opticom is in line to receive a grant of just under $10 million, in federal stimulus money, for the company to lay a fiber optic trunk cable from Winston to near Three Forks as a first step toward bringing high-speed broadband service to potential customers throughout Broadwater County.
As part of the deal, Montana Opticom must put up just over $10 million in matching funds. That money is to come from industrial development revenue bonds to be issued by Broadwater County. The grant for Montana Opticom is a portion of $309 million in broadband grants approved by Gianforte on 61 projects in Montana.
In addition to the Winston-to-Three Forks project, Montana Opticom was approved for a grant of $7.26 million to extend the company’s existing fiber optic network from west of Belgrade through Manhattan, Logan and Three Forks in Gallatin County, then to Three Forks Junction.
“Our plan is to connect the two projects to each other,” Opticom general manager Dean Nelson said in an interview with MT43 News. Once they are in place, the company will apply to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for funds “to build internet cable right to households", Nelson said.
The prize of it all is revenue from selling broadband service to hundreds of paying customers. In an email letter last August to some business leaders and to Broadwater County Commissioners, Nelson said the project will serve 1,051 residences, 819 farms, and 11 institutions such as hospitals, schools and public safety organizations. In all, the project involves over 790,000 feet (nearly 150 miles) of fiber construction, he wrote. Nelson said the company committed to finishing the project within two years after the allocation of funds.
In an earlier communication, on April 24, Nelson said, “This has been an arduous and ongoing project that pushes the limits of an acceptable return on investment, even with the subsidies, but we are confident that by contributing to the infrastructure in the area we can help foster economic development in addition to connecting average hard-working Montanans to the digital economy".
“I’d like to think that Montana Opticom will be a great service provider in the area – and we are looking at having customer service and installations and repair teams based in Three Forks and Townsend. We may not be a global-mega corporation, but we excel at being local”, he added.
On Oct. 12, the Broadwater County Commission adopted a resolution to issue and sell industrial development revenue bonds, up to a maximum of $60 million, for loans to Montana Opticom to finance the project. As regulated by Montana law, the company is solely responsible for all obligations under the bonds and all costs of issuing them. The county serves as a pass-through conduit to an underwriting financial institution, in this case, KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., as the initial purchaser of the bonds.
The fiber cable itself will be subject to property taxation.
Article Images
Click on Image Thumbnail(s) to view fullsize image
PhotoCredit: MT43 News Staff Reporter
Image 1 Caption: Governor Gianforte, seated beside Director of Administration Misty Ann Giles, sign a letter authorizing the investment of over $309 million to expand broadband access.
.jpg)
