BOISE - A central Idaho Internet company will use $2.4 million in federal stimulus money to build eight broadband towers that will deliver high-speed Internet access to businesses, hospitals, schools and homes in five rural counties.

Most towns in the area, which was first populated by loggers and gold miners, have some sort of Internet access. But transmitting large files or watching videos online can be painfully slow. For example, smaller hospitals sometimes have trouble sending radiology files to a larger hospital in Lewiston.

The company that received the money, Moscow-based First Step Internet, couldn't afford to invest in the infrastructure without the federal government's investment, said Mike Hall, area sales manager.

"It's harder for us to make a capital argument to put in that level of equipment," he said. "There's not a large enough population that's going to generate income."

Most of the towers will be put up over the next few months on rural mountaintops in the five counties: Latah, Idaho, Clearwater, Lewis and Nez Perce.

The money is part of $7.2 billion in federal stimulus money going to underserved areas nationwide, including poor neighborhoods in inner city Chicago and a rural county in the Appalachian mountains in western Virginia.

Steve Frei, who runs a small cabinet manufacturing company in Idaho County, used to worry about bad weather interrupting his Internet connection, which jeopardized his ability to get business.

Frei built his company on land once farmed by his parents just outside Ferdinand, a town with a population of about 150.

Last year, First Step Internet installed an antenna for broadband access in town with federal funding from another program. About three months ago, Frei replaced his satellite system with broadband from that antenna, so he and his employees no longer have to scoop snow off the satellite dish to fix the Internet connection in bad weather.

Thanks to that antenna on a nearby grain elevator, he submits large bids to contractors using a faster and more reliable connection.

"The technology really allows you to do business," Frei said. "We could be in New York City or Ferdinand, Idaho, as far as the Internet goes."

Local economic development leaders said they want residents of central Idaho, which is full of high peaks, gorges, meadows and rivers, to experience the Internet just like people who live in cities.

The leaders are betting that such broadband access will slow down the economic decline of small towns like Ferdinand, where Frei's family has lived for three generations.

Other rural parts of Idaho are also getting a cut of federal stimulus dollars for broadband. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe in North Idaho last month got more than $12 million to build a high-speed Internet connection on its reservation, which is about half the size of Rhode Island.

The options now are limited because the local cable company has pulled out of the market and Verizon Communications Inc. offers digital subscriber line service to just a small slice of the reservation.