In a recent interview with APPA, Chris Fredericksen, the general manager of Idaho Falls Power and Idaho Falls Fiber, detailed the path taken by the utility to deliver value to its customers through Idaho Falls Fiber.
Fredericksen has served as general manager of the Idaho public power utility since early May of this year. Prior to that, he served as the public works director for Idaho Falls for 13 years.
Earlier this year, Idaho Falls Fiber announced a new milestone in the growth of the community's high speed broadband network as it welcomed its 10,000th connected customer to the city owned fiber optic system.
In a recent episode of APPA’s Public Power Now podcast, Fredericksen noted that in the late 1990s “our first fiber was installed” to interconnect the county court system with law enforcement facilities “and that was followed with interconnectivity that was installed in 2001 to really connect a lot of our city services in the downtown area.”
In 2019, Idaho Falls Power initiated a pilot project “that really was put together to determine really is this something that would be viable to roll out on a citywide basis.”
The pilot program proved to be very successful and showed that this is a service that the community could benefit from.
“And based on that, expenditures were made and the infrastructure was put in place by 2025,” he said.
“If you think back, making some of those decisions with what COVID brought to us and how it kind of changed our community, this notion of working from home, a lot of that legwork was starting at Idaho Falls Power with that fiber interconnectivity,” he noted.
From the early installation in 1998 “to full ability to actually serve customers within Idaho Falls to 2025, we've now become the largest open access network in Idaho,” Fredericksen said.
The utility has leveraged a lot of the infrastructure that existed for power service for fiber, he noted.
The utility owns the fiber and has done the installation and there are six independent internet service providers that residential customers can choose from that still utilize the utility’s network.
“Celebrating our 10,000th customer I think is pretty amazing from a thought back in 1998 to full service capability in 2025,” he said.
The effort highlights the forward thinking that has been adopted by the utility, Fredericksen said.
Idaho Falls Power can also go to elected officials and say, “hey, this was a huge investment that not probably just anyone would have taken on,” he said, adding that the project has “tremendously benefited our customers.”
In late August, Idaho Falls Fiber said it is expanding its high-speed internet offerings with the launch of 2.5 Gigabit (2.5Gbps) service, giving residential customers in Idaho Falls access to even faster internet speeds.
Connecting with Customers
Meanwhile, in June, Idaho Falls Power hosted a "Meet & Greet w/ a Summer Treat" event with Fredericksen.
“I think it's just a key emphasis that public power is built on those local relationships,” he said.
“And when we have that opportunity to get together and talk about what are those things that we have in common and then communicate to people because I think it's still kind of surprising to people -- this is a community owned public power company, right?”
He said that as “we come together, they're the people that we're going to see at football games on Friday night, right? This is your community owned resource and we're happy to hear what your concerns are and see how we can address those and so these types of opportunities are really fun.”
Meeting with customers gives the utility the opportunity “to stress, hey, we're your utility company and we're local and we're investing in the future of Idaho Falls here.”
Peaking Plant and Reliability
In the interview, Fredericksen also discussed the utility’s 17.5-megawatt natural gas peaking plant and detailed the steps the utility has taken to bolster reliability.
Idaho Falls Power has been recognized by APPA with a 2025 certificate of excellence and reliability.
