Timnath joins Loveland in providing locally-owned broadband service to residents

The Town of Timnath, located just east of Fort Collins, is one of Northern Colorado's fastest growing communities. Because of that, the town is now investing more than $20 million to offer locally-owned broadband services to their residents and businesses.

Pulse, the service provider the City of Loveland owns and operates, has started installing high speed internet to the Town of Timnath as part of a new partnership.

"We are really excited," said Brieana Reed-Harmel, broadband manager for Pulse. "There is conduit going into the ground."

Because Timnath is growing from a farming community to a town filled with brand new neighborhoods, town officials surveyed residents to see if there was demand for locally-owned broadband service in the community. According to Aaron Adams, the town's manager, more than 80% of people polled responded in favor of having a not-for-profit broadband service as an option.

The town has broken ground on a new Pulse facility which will serve as a hub for the town's broadband network. Crews have already spent recent days installing the broadband lines underground along Harmony Road.

"Timnath has been working with Loveland for the last two-to-three years now to bring this to implementation," Adams said. "Our expectation is we will have that fiber ran to every premise. That is residential, commercial and everywhere in between."

Adams said a selling point to having the fiber installed now is knowing the projected community growth will be welcomed with access to broadband already available.

"I've been town manager for almost four years, and our population has almost doubled in that time," Adams said.

Though Timnath is fronting the $20 million to build out the service into town, taxpayers will see that money returned to the town in a matter of years. That is because the fees people pay for the service go back to government operations and budgets and Loveland has agreed to share some of that revenue with Timnath.

"We are actually going to be revenue sharing with them. So, it is a win-win for us. We get to expand community broadband into their community and we get to share that success back with the town of Timnath," Reed-Harmel said.

The goal is to have the service up and running to its first customers at the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025, according to Adams.

"As we look to the future communities that have good coverage from an internet and broadband perspective will out-compete those who don't," Adams said.