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Chickasaw County weighs dark‑fiber network and approves 300‑hour IT contract
Summary
The Chickasaw County Board discussed building a countywide dark‑fiber loop to link county offices, add redundancy and centralized servers, and approved a 2026 IT service agreement with FX2020 Inc. for 300 service hours while directing staff to get cost estimates and bid options.
The Chickasaw County Board of Supervisors on May 10 discussed a plan to run dark fiber to county facilities to create redundant Internet, centralized servers and faster interoffice connections, and approved a 2026 IT service agreement for 300 service hours with FX2020 Inc.
The board’s chair opened a multi‑speaker briefing with an IT consultant and county IT staff, who described a design linking county buildings with dark fiber and placing redundant servers in three locations so systems could fail over quickly. "Dark fiber is connected to all of the offices so we can have it all in 1 network and back up all devices," the consultant said, emphasizing benefits for phones, servers and VLAN‑segmented networks. The consultant added Starlink would be used only as a redundancy for rare outages.
Why it matters: county officials said redundancy and reduced downtime were recommendations from the Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC). The design aims to keep critical county services — including court records, public‑health systems and sheriff’s office applications — available during localized outages.
The consultant and county IT staff reviewed tradeoffs and rough costs. Board members asked whether the county must competitively bid the fiber work and who would pay recurring Internet service fees once fiber was installed. One supervisor asked for hard numbers, noting an example estimate of roughly $140,000 to run dark fiber to a particular building; the consultant said exact pricing would depend on route, aerial vs. underground runs and how many buildings are connected. The consultant said local providers could be more responsive than larger ISPs and recommended obtaining firm bids and a phased plan.
The board voted to approve a 2026 IT service agreement with FX2020 Inc. for 300 service hours to support implementation and ongoing work; the motion passed with four ayes and one member absent. County staff were directed to gather firm cost estimates, clarify whether competitive bidding is required for particular fiber runs, and return with pricing, service‑model options and a recommended procurement strategy.
What’s next: staff will collect estimates for dark‑fiber construction and monthly service, clarify procurement rules, and bring back data to the board for a follow‑up decision. The board also discussed potential office moves and facility‑space implications tied to the IT upgrades.
