Mar. 30—A council bill for the city to enter into a contract with Allo Missouri to build a fiber-optic internet service in Joplin will be considered on first reading Monday by the Joplin City Council.
Allo Missouri is a division of Allo Fiber, based in Lincoln, Nebraska. It provides internet service, TV and phone service to 50 cities in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado and Arizona.
Details of the contract and the proposed service were discussed between the council, city staff and Brad Moline, president and CEO of Allo, at a meeting Monday, March 11.
Construction of the fiber-optic network would start in the second quarter of this year and would have to be finished by the end of 2026 if the contract is approved.
Moline said, "We do a whole lot more than just being an ISP," or internet service provider, Moline said; Allo also provides television and home telephone services.
In addition to Allo's investment, the city would contribute $5 million through a federal grant obtained from the American Rescue Plan Act.
City costsJoplin city officials were asked after the meeting if that money would amount to a subsidy to Allo.
City Manager Nick Edwards said it is not a subsidy. The money would pay for additional services and equipment Allo would provide to protect the system that is built and to provide additional precautions for city equipment and internet service.
"The city has not subsidized the provider in any way," Edwards said. "The city is providing ARPA funds to the provider to add resiliency and redundancy, and the provider is providing capital to construct the entire network. The ARPA funds will be used exclusively to fund the city's investments, not to compensate the provider," the city manager said.
More than $4 million of the ARPA grant money would go toward providing more buried fiber-optic cable for strong signal clarity and so the system will be resistant to storms. The remainder of the money will go toward building redundancy into the system and strengthening city computer systems against cyberattacks. The city specifies that the operating systems in all city buildings be hardened and equipped with features to reduce security risks, said Troy Bolander, director of planning, development and neighborhood services for Joplin.
Asked after the meeting about the hardening, Bolander said the city's service would be provided with enhanced barriers to protect it from either technical or physical damage to the system.
City officials said there are two ways that the city would accomplish resiliency and redundancy to protect the city's internet systems against disasters such as the 2011 tornado or through cyberattacks. That is through the addition of a second "central office" which houses the system's connections. In addition, deploying a significant percentage of the fiber underground as well as fiber running to the city's anchor institutions as opposed to attaching fiber lines to existing electrical poles is another way to provide system resiliency, city officials said.