A one-time infusion of cash into the city of Bowling Green’s coffers could lead to a long-term improvement in how city residents and businesses connect to the internet.

The city has released a request for bids on a project it calls “Fiber to the Premises.” Under its plan, the city would use $16.5 million it is receiving over two years in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to attract potential vendors to run fiber optic cable to every residence and business in the city.

A posting on the city’s “Request for Bids” website said the city is looking for a vendor to bring fiber-based gigabit-class broadband service to Bowling Green.

The successful bidder, according to the post, will “design, build, manage and maintain a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure and will provide broadband internet service to all residents, businesses and institutions within the city.”

It’s an idea that has been floated before, only to be shot down because of cost.

A 2017 study, in fact, estimated the cost of running fiber to every home in Bowling Green Municipal Utilities’ service area at $47 million.

Now, with the influx of ARPA money, city officials believe the time may have come to move Bowling Green residents into the internet fast lane.

“We’re dedicated to getting fiber to all homes,” Bowling Green Mayor Todd Alcott said. “We’re leveraging all the ARPA funds. Without that, it would be years and years before we could get fiber to everyone.”

The request for bids lays out the need for boosting internet speeds in a city that has 27,305 total households and 3,737 total businesses.

Although a map from the Federal Communications Commission shows that 99% of Bowling Green addresses have access to the minimum definition of broadband service (25 megabits per second), 72.93% don’t have access to the 1-gigabit (a billion bits per second) speed that has become the standard in an age when video streaming and online shopping are the rule rather than the exception.

As a result of such statistics, City Commissioner Sue Parrigin said “broadband expansion is a qualified use of ARPA funds because we’re considered underserved when it comes to broadband.”

Parrigin admits that even the two years’ worth of ARPA money won’t cover the cost of constructing a fiber network throughout the city.

“But it will get somebody started,” she said. “We’re partnering with whoever wins the bid. The provider will make up the rest of the cost.”

The request for bids document spells out how a healthy diet of fiber could benefit the city and its residents.

“Greater access to broadband is an important driver of lowering business costs, attracting and retaining highly skilled residents, attracting new industries and retaining existing businesses,” the document said. “The city intends to provide our businesses with the broadband capacity they need to compete successfully in the global marketplace and to support the local community.”

Pointing to the example of Chattanooga, Tenn., which she said has benefited greatly from a fiber optic project completed in 2011, Parrigin said a similar project in Bowling Green could be a “game-changer.”

“We’ll be able to talk to technology companies about coming to Bowling Green,” Parrigin said. “We’re already super good at attracting manufacturers, but we can’t even talk to tech companies.”

Alcott said the December tornadoes that disrupted cable and electric service “showed us the criticality of fiber.”

“We’re dedicated to getting fiber to all homes,” Alcott said. “Our goal is to not be an underserved area.”

Finding a vendor to help the city achieve that goal may not require an extensive search.

BGMU is already providing gigabit internet service to businesses through its BGMU Fiber division, and Alcott mentioned the city utility provider as a possible bidder on the FTTP project.

“We know of two companies putting in bids,” Alcott said. “There may be more.”

BGMU General Manager Mark Iverson agrees that the utility known for its electric and water service “would be a logical candidate” for extending fiber throughout the city.

“We have a 20-year history of doing it (fiber) commercially,” Iverson said. “We understand the industry fairly well.”

The huge cost of running fiber to all city residents has been an insurmountable obstacle in the past, but now Iverson said: “It seems like there is some opportunity with the federal funds.”

Iverson said BGMU is giving the FTTP project a serious look.

“We’re trying to understand our numbers a little better, trying to get some better insight,” he said. “One of the things we’re doing is talking to other municipal utilities that have launched something like this. We’re looking at the track records of others.”

The city’s use of federal funds to roll out fiber optic cable is hardly unprecedented, even locally.

Warren Fiscal Court is using $10 million of its $25 million ARPA allotment to fund the efforts of Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. to extend fiber optic cable and bring broadband internet service to underserved parts of the county through a partnership with North Central Telephone Cooperative.

Money from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is also being used locally to extend broadband access.

WRECC was awarded $2.3 million in Rural Digital Opportunity Fund money to work with NCTC and the Franklin Electric Plant Board to reach 13,600 potential new customers in Warren, Simpson, Grayson and Edmonson counties who don’t now have access to high-speed internet.

Charter Communications, which does business locally as Spectrum, was awarded $1.2 million to expand its broadband service to underserved areas of the county.

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.