So she was ecstatic on Monday morning to be the first customer of TDS Telecom in Missoula. The company will be installing fiber-optic Internet in Missoula and Lolo, and they also provide phone and digital TV options.
"The first time we heard about it, we signed up because we're geeks," Smathers said. "I was living with dial-up Internet in the Bitterroot. So this is fantastic."
The company has been busy building its physical network across Missoula, and they have a goal of wiring about 1,700 customers here in the first year.
"The investment for TDS is right around $55 million just to get Missoula live," said company sales associate Dan Maronick.
TDS Telecom is based in Wisconsin and has networks in cities across the country. Ryan Corwin, the associate manager for field marketing, said pretty much anyone who lives in the Missoula metro area will be able to sign up for the service if they desire.
In 2021, the Missoula city council approved the company's application to use public right-of-way areas to build out its network. Monday marks the first time in decades that a hard-wired Internet company will be competing head-to-head with Spectrum (formerly known as Charter Communications) in the Missoula urban area. Blackfoot Communications also provides fiber communications service in western Montana, but Blackfoot CEO Jason Williams said he doesn't really see TDS as a competitor because the companies have different business models and mostly different service areas.
"Historically we've never had cable companies compete head-to-head, pursuant to the federal communications law," said former Missoula city attorney Jim Nugent during an Oct. 20, 2021, city council committee meeting. "This is going to be the first time that you'll have direct competition with cable companies."
Right now, TDS is offering a 300 megabyte plan for $49.99 a month, which is the price a customer would pay for life. Corwin said the company offers upload and download speeds of up to 8 gigabytes to residential customers, and businesses can get 10 gigabyte connections.
The company uses a horizontal drilling technique, so they don't need to disturb people's yards to get the wires to homes.
Corwin said the company's upload and download speeds are the same, which is known in the business as "symmetrical."
That means people like Smathers can talk online with her students and not have any lag time back-and-forth.
"Traditionally with like a coaxial cable hookup, you're gonna say maybe up to 300 megabytes download, but probably 10-20 upload and that's about it," Corwin said. "The other one is we're not affected by weather and traditional outage causers like that because fiber is all glass and is fed by light."
Some parts of Missoula will be ready for installation at later times than other parts. People can register for installation by going to the TDS Telecom website.
In March of last year, Gov. Greg Gianforte celebrated a ribbon-cutting at the TDS warehouse in Missoula.
"Through the expansion of its fiber network in Montana, TDS Telecom will provide reliable service to over 100,000 homes and businesses and support 70 Montana jobs," Gianforte said at the time.
©2024 Missoulian, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
