Far from leaving them in the dark without service, the demise of Idaho’s multimillion-dollar statewide school broadband network has brought several North Idaho school districts better service at a lower cost. “We’re getting more bandwidth now than we did before,” said Seth Deniston, technology director for the Coeur d’Alene School District. “We’re definitely paying less.” “It’s a lot cheaper than I thought,” said Tom Taggart, business manager for the Lakeland School District.

In fact, at least five North Idaho school districts were able to quickly transfer their broadband service from the troubled Idaho Education Network to local Post Falls firm Ednetics at big savings. And they increased their broadband speed.

“It appears we were being overcharged for the services provided,” said Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert. “And obviously one of the silver linings in this whole issue is that not only will we reformulate what the IEN looks like, but we’ll have an opportunity for it to be more competitively bid.” You can read my full story here at spokesman.com.