Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Pass 1 Million Broadband Connection Milestone
The Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas say they recently finished delivering fiber broadband capability to more than one million Arkansans as part of a $4.66 billion expansion.
More than 40,000 miles of fiber have been installed by 17 cooperative broadband providers, including 15 local broadband providers, one wholesale broadband provider, and one middle-mile fiber company.
In a prepared statement, Arkansas cooperatives indicate they have $2.2 billion in additional projects lined up connecting an additional 13,000 residents in the “Natural State.” Once completed, Arkansas cooperatives will have deployed 53,000 miles of fiber and connected 1.2 million state residents to fiber.
Informed by their efforts at rural electrification nearly a century earlier, U.S. electrical cooperatives have increasingly been pushing into fiber broadband deployment. Initially as a way to better monitor and manage complex modern electrical grids, then ultimately as a way to extend access to predominately rural customers trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.
Nearly 80 percent of the state cooperatives’ investment in fiber infrastructure has been self-funded without grant subsidies, the coalition notes. Many of the markets they’ve targeted have long been neglected by regional cable and phone giants that believe the investment into rural counties isn’t worth the time and resources, or won’t be profitable enough, quickly enough for Wall Street.
