Allan Saenz, owner of LAnet, speaks during Wednesday’s virtual meeting on community broadband, which he hosted. Screenshot by Los Alamos Reporter
Mike Edl, vice president of Bonfire Fiber, answers questions from the community. Screenshot by Los Alamos Reporter
BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Some 40 members of the community attended Wednesday’s virtual meeting called by Los Alamos Network – LAnet owner Allan Saenz to discuss broadband developments in Los Alamos, particularly the community broadband project. Los Alamos County has announced thenames of the four internet service providers (ISPs) for Atomic Fiber, the County’s broadband project. (https://losalamosreporter.com/2026/02/24/county-announces-selection-of-atomic-fiber-internet-service-providers/)
Saenz spoke about LAnet’s 28-years of supporting fiber optics and broadband infrastructure in the County. He expressed disappointment that a potential collaboration with the County on the Atomic Fiber project has become a legal issue related to infrastructure placed in Quemazon by LAnet for which the County is questioning ownership. Saenz has been attempting to resolve the ownership issue since 2005.
When attendees began submitting questions for Mike Edl, vice president of operations for Bonfire Fiber, the County’s broadband contractor, the question of whether new fiber would be installed in new conduit at Quemazon was also raised.
Edl explained that new fiber installation in Quemazon is currently planned, though there are existing conduits that could reduce costs if the County agrees. He said Bonfire engineers have looked at the conduit LAnet has that would reduce the cost of fiber and added that he would take the issue back to the County “just to say where are we with that”.
“I think we need to get closure with that before we begin spending money building,” Edl said
Saenz agreed saying the cost would be reduced without the duplicate connection but that it looks like running new fiber is preferred by the County.
“Running fiber in Quemazon is not going to be easy and it will be costly. I’m offering an option that’s not as expensive but right now it doesn’t look like that will be accepted,” Saenz said.
Edl also explained how community members will be able to select one of the four Atomic Fiber providers who will provide the service through the County’s system. Fiber will be brought in and the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) will take the signal into the house where there will be an ethernet cable that can be plugged into a router that will be provided by the chosen ISP, Edl said. He noted that the demarcation point is the ONT that will be placed in the home of any subscriber. If that subscriber decides that they don’t like a particular ISP they can change to another ISP and the new ISP will send them a new router. The original router will be collected.
“One of the agreements Bonfire has with the ISPs is to allow the incumbent ISP for that customer three days for them to try and save the customer. The last thing you want to do is people switching, switching, switching,” Edl said.
Bonfire will teach all four of the ISPs about the system they will be implementing and will have technicians to support the County until their contract expires.
“Construction will start probably in April and we expect to be able start customers’ activations in the June timeframe,” Edl said.
“LAnet will have connections to White Rock and Los Alamos from their facility. The other three ISPs will be coming in from Albuquerque. They will all have to be on redundant routes. The benefit of Open Access Networks is that you will have one line in to your property to get four ISPs. Providers will have different services which gives the consumer more choices,” Edl said.
Edl also discussed what he called a “technology crisis going on today”. He said Prices are increasing on network equipment and even personal computers are going to be impacted. There have been issues with the validity of quotes and the requoting for equipment for a higher price. He said all this happening in the market is concerning and can affect project, even the Atomic Fiber initiative.
“Any places that we can find cost reductions that can benefit the County, means we can reach more homes or hopefully have more funds available,” Edl said.
Edl said the County will only put connections to the houses that sign up and not to every house in the County. He said the building of the system is success based.
“One of the things we’d like to do for Los Alamos and we’ve talked to the County about, is pre-sale drops. In other words it’s having the ISPs get customers signed on and we tell the customer in the area what the timing would be when the services would be available,” he said. “However, when our main line comes through what we’d like to do is have the drops, which are not wires but glass, in a small duct with two fibers going to that house, just in case one were to break, the other one would be used. We would like to get customers that want the service to go ahead and get the drops in when the main line goes down the street. We can connect along the way and connect their services while coming through with the actual network.”
Crews will be starting in both White Rock and Los Alamos and Bonfire will start activating fiber for customers in both communities at the same time. Doing the drops probably takes an hour when crews out there, Edl said, and the fiber wouldn’t be spliced in until the services are ready to go and the ISP router is in place to activate the service.
The wholesale rate is the same wholesale rate for all ISPs. There is no procurement preference for LAnet as a local business, Edl said, adding that the opportunity for LAnet is that there are more areas that he will have access to without spending capital to get to those areas.
“At the wholesale rate that the County agreed to, it will enhance Allan’s opportunity to get to business without spending capital,” Edl said.
“The drop cost will be waived and what we suggested to the County is not to charge a drop cost because the County needs to get customers onboarded so that revenue starts flowing to offset cost. The ISPs don’t want to be charging customers for the drops so the County is taking care of that. The fee that we typically have for us doing the work – we waived that and we have not charged an install fee in the other market we’re in,” Edl said.
There are no contracts for broadband service.
“All the contracts are month-to-month so you don’t sign up for three years. I’m not saying you can’t have a contract, however, the Open Access Networks I’ve been involved in are month-to-month. It’s about flexibility for the customer to make sure that they’re treated right with great customer service with a great price. The other thing to note is the services on this fiber will be symmetrical, which means today you might have 100 megabyte service and if I ask you what speed are you getting. Download can be 100 mb and upstream can be a lot less,” Edl said.
Edl is adamant that customer satisfaction levels with the ISPs will be high.
“We will be reviewing the feedback with the ISPs to see if they need help and to find out what is going on in order to maintain their customers. I really believe the community of Los Alamos is going to have a great experience with the ISPs we have and all of us working together in a common focus to provide superior service, including the actual services and speed you’re going to get,” EDl said. ” Minimizing outage time is what we strive for. The reason we got this contract is our mission at Bonfire is that we want to provide affordable internet to unserved and underserved communities and at this time, other than LAnet that can provide higher speeds with the fiber Allan has, it’s an underserved community.”
About installation practices, Edl said Bonfire typically talks to the customer about where they would like them to bring the fiber into their home.
“You’ll have a choice. People usually want the ONT close to where they want their router. That way you don’t have to have wire all over. They have invisible line for the inside fiber so they can go along baseboards and it seals to the baseboard and can come up the back of a hutch to wherever your router is. We can also come through the attic and come down, so there are multiple ways to do that,” Edl said. “The last thing we want to do is to mess up the inside of your house or even outside the house, so technically we will conduct a survey, the technician will come out and you’ll walk him through where you want things and they’ll tell you whether it’ll work or not. But you the customer will make the decision on what you want to do.”
The contract between Los Alamos County and Bonfire Engineering & Construction LLC for the “Atomic Fiber” community broadband project is divided into two primary financial components:
The Design -Build agreement was approved in November 2024 for a total “not to exceed” amount of $35 million that covers the infrastructure build-out for approximately 10,000 homes and businesses. In addition to the construction costs, the County approved a long-term agreement for Bonfire to manage the network operations in the amount of $15.9 million for a duration of up to 20 years, structured as a five-year initial term with five-year renewable increments.