Direct Communications press release
POCATELLO — Local fiber optic network provider Direct Communications has purchased Pocatello-based Optix Media LLC. This deal will create the largest fiber optic network in Eastern Idaho, and link together thousands of business and residential customers stretching from Rexburg to Logan and Bear Lake to American Falls.
Tim May, general manager of Direct Communications, said that this merger made sense considering the respective strengths of the two companies. “Direct Communications has been linking together small towns in Idaho with fiber for the past 20 years. We had a great regional transport network, and Optix had built a great distribution network inside of the urban centers where we were looking to expand, like Chubbuck, Rexburg, Pocatello, Blackfoot and Idaho Falls. Plus, we were focused on commercial fiber, while Optix was mainly serving residences and apartment complexes. Bringing these companies together completes the picture, and will now mean better access to fiber optic services for businesses, homeowners and renters throughout Idaho.”
Optix Media customers will now be served by Direct Communications, which started as a traditional phone company in 1954 in Rockland Idaho. The family-owned company has constructed over 1000 miles of fiber optic cable throughout southeast Idaho, connecting small towns to the national Internet backbone and bringing state-of-the-art fiber optic services to customers even in rural Idaho towns like Fish Haven, Paris, Montpelier, Arbon, Lava Hot Springs, Downey and Rockland. In fact, Direct Communications customers in rural Rockland Idaho have been enjoying 1 Gig Fiber Internet service since 2007, many years before residential customers in any of the larger cities in the USA had access to fiber speeds.
In Spring 2017, Direct Communications became the first provider to build a fiber optic line from American Falls all the way to the town of Aberdeen , thus linking that previously internet isolated town to the world via fiber optic for the first time. This construction project involved burying about 13 miles of new fiber across county lines along the Aberdeen Highway, and brought new opportunities for local businesses along the highway, and will enable everyone in and around Aberdeen to enjoy better telecommunications services, including better mobile data from the cell towers now served by fiber.
Many farms and homes in the Pleasant Valley area between American Falls and Aberdeen immediately took advantage of the new fiber line and signed up for new fiber to the home services. For many of these customers, it was the first truly reliable Internet service they had ever had access to, since wireless or satellite were the only previously available options
Optix Media has grown rapidly since its founding in 2012, with a mission to provide fiber optic and high performance wireless networks to demanding wireless areas such as Apartment Complexes. After starting with building a metro fiber-optic network around the Brigham Young University in Rexburg ID, today Optix Media is approaching 17,000 users.
The opportunity created from this purchase as May states will be great for the communities served by the combination of Direct Communications and Optix Media. “We are very excited for the opportunity that this purchase will create for the current customers of Direct Communications and Optix Media and for the hopefully economic benefit that this will create for the communities we serve and will serve. We plan on continuing to be a part of these communities and hope to be able to connect even more communities and businesses to the internet highway of the future.”
About Direct Communications
Direct Communications is the premiere regional fiber optic network in southeast Idaho. We are a local, family-owned, independent Idaho fiber broadband company, connecting Idaho residents since 1954. Thanks to Direct Communications, even small rural businesses in Southeast Idaho have been enjoying world-class fiber optic services since 2007, the same year we became the first company in Idaho to bring fiber to the home. We have a very long history of partnering with small towns in Idaho in building out telecommunications infrastructure to improve life for all residents. We constructed our first fiber line through the city of Pocatello in 2001, and for the past decade have carried much of the area data traffic, even for larger providers like Centurylink, over our regional fiber network in southeast Idaho. We have for the past 9 years been installing and providing fiber optic service to city buildings, anchor institutions, businesses, and residents in the towns of Aberdeen, American Falls, Arbon, Bancroft, Bloomington, Downey, Fish Haven, Georgetown, Grace, Lava Hot Springs, Liberty McCammon, Montpelier, Paris, Preston, Rockland, St. Charles, and more recently, Rexburg, Pocatello and Chubbuck.
