What started as an electric cooperative’s way to serve free Wi-Fi at high school football games for friends and neighbors in the stands will now not only change lives but save them.  

Tombigbee Fiber LLC, the broadband arm of Tupelo, Mississippi-based Tombigbee Electric Power Association, is using Calix SmartTown™ to pioneer automatic Wi-Fi throughout its seven-county service territory for all first responders at no charge. 

Without wasting critical minutes struggling for internet access, first responders will be able to contact a hospital immediately with details of a medical emergency that’s on the way or quickly call for backup when a crime situation escalates in a remote area.  

“Certainly, they have cellphones, but there are parts of rural Mississippi and other parts of this great country where those things just won’t work,” said Tombigbee CEO Scott Hendrix. “I would challenge any co-op that’s in the broadband business, if they have the potential of doing this, to do it. We want to make your life better and that’s the co-op spirit. I’m confident we will save lives.” 

The co-op this year began signing up nearly 70 organizations including rescue squads, law enforcement agencies, volunteer fire stations, game wardens, hospitals and others for the seamless Wi-Fi. Once signed up, their devices automatically log in wherever Tombigbee service is available. 

The co-op delivers broadband internet access and SmartTown connectivity to 23,000 homes and is installing about 250 SmartTown transmitters at volunteer fire departments, parks and gathering locations recommended by first responders.   

Hendrix said first responders expressed gratitude that the co-op would serve as “one more link in the chain to solve their communication problems at no cost.” 

“They all relayed that they knew of a spot where there was no connectivity and said this was going save lives,” he said. 

Tombigbee is the first customer of Calix to employ the telecommunications software developer’s platform as a free, community-wide secure network for emergency public services, “and they made it happen fast,” said Michael Weening, Calix president and CEO. “We are proud to be their partner in helping to make the Mississippi communities they have served for 90+ years a safer place to live.” 

The co-op seized upon the idea after providing free Wi-Fi at nine high school football fields on Friday nights.  

“It was a hit and made the grandmothers happy,” said Hendrix. “The people in the communities were amazed that they could get such a wonderful service, that they could communicate with their family and stream games. We did all this at no charge to the schools and that got us a little taste of what the community needed.” 

Tombigbee has invested more than $100 million to build its fiber broadband network and setting up the Wi-Fi network for first responders cost another $150,000, about what the co-op has spent on billboard campaigns, but with a great deal more impact, he said. 

“We are actually looking our members in the eyes and they’re saying thank you for this,” he said.  

“We want to impact the community with the same spirit we had in 1933 to turn the lights on in rural Mississippi and change rural America. This is our way to give back, our way to change the area and make it better.” 

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today issued the following statement after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to increase broadband benchmark speeds from 25/3 megabits per second to 100/20 Mbps.

“The Commission’s vote is a step in the right direction but still falls short of meeting the needs of rural communities,” Matheson said. “Affordable and reliable broadband access creates new ways to live, learn and earn in rural America. Rural families and businesses should not be subjected to second class service simply because of their zip code.  

“Consumer residential and business demands have already surpassed the benchmark approved today. With that in mind, the FCC should move to set future-proof benchmark speeds of at least 100/100 Mbps to ensure the broadband needs of rural communities can be met as demand continues to grow.”

The prior benchmark of 25/3 Mbps was set nearly a decade ago, and demand for bandwidth has surged exponentially since then. NRECA has long argued that the FCC’s proposed 100/20 Mbps standard is inadequate, and that the FCC must adopt a broadband speed benchmark of at least 100/100 Mbps.

The continued adoption of artificial intelligence, internet-based devices, telework practices, and the expanded use of applications supporting telehealth and online education will continue driving a need for even faster internet highways in the future.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $15 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

NRECA CEO Jim Matheson is urging leaders in Congress to act quickly to save a federal program that helps millions of low-income families afford quality internet service.

The Federal Communications Commission said its Affordable Connectivity Program will expire in April if additional funding is not provided. The ACP provides a monthly subsidy for qualified households to help with the cost of broadband service, mainly in economically challenged areas. Electric cooperatives serve 92% of the nation’s persistent poverty counties.

“NRECA and its members are deeply committed to bridging the digital divide and connecting rural families and businesses with reliable and affordable high-speed internet, and the majority of NRECA members offering broadband participate in ACP,” Matheson told the lawmakers in a Feb. 5 letter.

“Ensuring that there is a consistent, dependable and effective low-income broadband program such as the ACP will allow rural providers to deliver the highest quality broadband service to their communities at an affordable price,” he said, noting that allowing the program to end will “jeopardize access to broadband services for millions.”

The ACP provides monthly internet bill assistance of $30 to eligible low-income households. Those on tribal lands may qualify for $75 a month.

“As more cooperatives and other internet service providers work to build broadband networks in hard-to-reach rural and low-income areas, affordability will become increasingly critical to adoption of these essential services,” Matheson said.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act to provide funding for the ACP through the end of the year.

Matheson asked the lawmakers to support passage of that bill or similar legislation to “provide important short-term clarity and certainty around the program while Congress works to address questions around the future of the program and develop a permanent funding solution.”

NRECA Broadband is positioning co-ops as a crucial force in rural broadband. Visit cooperative.com/broadband to learn more and sign up.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

As the 2024 election year begins, an already divided Congress may well be struggling to reach consensus on crucial legislation while the Biden administration rushes to issue new federal regulations.

That’s the climate that NRECA’s Government Relations team likely faces as it advocates on behalf of electric cooperatives on Capitol Hill, at the White House and with federal agencies.

In a recent Q&A session, Louis Finkel, NRECA’s senior vice president of Government Relations, talked about how the association will work aggressively to ensure that new bills and regulations help not-for-profit co-ops continue to provide reliable, affordable electricity to their consumer-members.

Electric co-ops have begun winning awards for millions of dollars from the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, thanks to provisions that NRECA helped secure in those bills. Do you expect the flow of funding to co-ops to continue in a big way this year?

Finkel: First, the biggest issue before Congress this year is going to be funding the government, as it was last year. There is an ongoing tension between the Biden administration, Senate Democrats and House Republicans, with House Republicans wanting to cut funding in the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

As we sit here in January, Congress is still working on funding the government for the current fiscal year and then will have to quickly turn to funding for the next fiscal year.

In that context, we continue to educate members of Congress about the value of new incentive programs designed to harden the grid and create greater resiliency in the face of a changing energy environment while looking for opportunities to solidify the reliable, affordable power that electric co-ops offer.

Getting provisions that benefit co-ops into law was really important, but shaping the programs and the guidance that comes out of the federal agencies that implement them has been just as important.

We have been engaged with the agencies to make sure that misguided agency interpretation does not undermine these programs and that they are implemented in the way that Congress intended them to be.

Congress is continuing to try to craft a new five-year Farm Bill that could include crucial funding for co-op infrastructure projects, rural economic development and broadband. What are the prospects for its passage this year? And what is NRECA doing to help shape Farm Bill programs that benefit co-ops and their members?

Finkel: Congress extended the current Farm Bill through the end of the year, which bought them some breathing room. There are some broad differences of opinion between the two parties on a range of programs—most of which don’t directly impact our co-ops.

Our intent is to work with members on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers to reinforce the important role that the Rural Utilities Service programs play as a crucial resource for infrastructure and system improvements and routine maintenance—all with a focus of keeping the lights on. Healthy, strong RUS programs are an important resource for co-op communities throughout the country.

What are some of NRECA’s other legislative priorities for 2024?

Finkel: Though we always have policy matters that we raise, oftentimes our message is driven by the congressional agenda, which could be really narrow this year.

We will look for ways to continue to address supply chain difficulties to ensure co-ops can get transformers in a reasonable time frame, and we’ll push Congress to use some government resources to further alleviate supply chain woes.

Congress is set to reauthorize the Water Resources Development Act, and in light of the recent developments in the Pacific Northwest and the administration’s backroom deal to undermine dams on the lower Snake River, we’ll be aggressively engaged to make sure there are no provisions in the bill to breach those dams.

We’ll continue to push for legislation to expedite permitting and alleviate the endless litigation that stifles the construction of infrastructure as well as advocate for transmission policies that allocate costs to those that benefit the most.

And related to broadband, there continues to be noise about changing the nature of the pole attachment exemptions for electric cooperatives, mostly by other participants in the broadband industry. We continue to educate members of Congress about the importance of the Federal Communications Commission exemptions for our members and how our members and our service territories are different.

With the recently installed Democratic majority at the FCC, we’ve seen a lot of proposals come forward, most notably one on net neutrality. NRECA is asking the FCC for targeted compliance exemptions for electric co-ops in any new net neutrality rules. Co-ops support net neutrality and treat all their broadband consumers equally, but excessive, onerous regulation could divert crucial investment away from the communities they serve.

NRECA has strongly opposed the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed power plant rule as a threat to co-ops’ ability to provide reliable, affordable power. What can we expect to see on this front in 2024?

Finkel: We expect to see a final rule in the spring, and we’ll continue to oppose the rule, which may very well result in litigation. We’ll continue to push back on the EPA’s overreach, which oversteps its statutory authority and hampers co-ops’ ability to provide reliable, affordable power.

We’ll oppose this kind of overreach by any federal agency, whether it’s the EPA or any other agency. We’ll continue to aggressively raise concerns where necessary and embrace proposals where they make sense.

This is obviously a huge election year with both the presidential and congressional elections. Do the elections complicate NRECA’s efforts to achieve its legislative and regulatory priorities?

Finkel: I don’t think it complicates our ability to achieve anything, but it complicates our ability to advance an agenda. With a divided Congress, it is already really hard to legislate, and even more so in an election year.

On the regulatory side, new proposals are unlikely to get finalized within a year. So, most new regulations that get put forward now are just markers for the president to tell voters what is important to his administration.

In that context, we will continue to oppose shortsighted policies and continue to support policies, both in Congress and in regulatory proposals, that serve the interests of our members and their consumer-members.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Over the past decade, as hundreds of billions of public dollars have been allocated to connect all Americans with reliable, affordable, high-speed internet access, most of the attention has been focused on building so-called “last mile” networks that connect homes and business to internet service providers. Less well-known is the “middle mile,” which connects local networks to the broader web—a particularly critical facet for rural areas located long distances from the main internet connection hubs.

As more and more electric cooperatives have gotten into the broadband space lately, many are finding it difficult to access reliable, affordable third-party middle-mile networks, and some of them are starting to take matters into their own hands.

To help explain the current challenges with middle mile and how co-ops are responding, we’re joined by Katie Culleton, NRECA legislative affairs director, and Steven Bandy, general manager of OzarksGo, the broadband subsidiary of Ozarks Electric Cooperative in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Related Content:

• Co-ops Band Together to Build Statewide and Regional Middle Mile Networks

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

New national programs are helping electric cooperatives continue to deliver first-class, affordable rural broadband, and federal agencies should ensure that their funding rules support co-op efforts, NRECA CEO Jim Matheson told an Axios virtual event.

Rural broadband deployments can be challenging and costly, so to make the economics work, policymakers may consider inferior technologies as “good enough for rural,” Matheson said.

“We reject that kind of thinking. Every American should have access to high-quality broadband,” he said. “NRECA is working to make sure investments in broadband are not just good for today, but good for the future.”

NRECA is encouraged that the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program supports scalable fiber networks as it gives tens of millions of dollars to states to aid communities lacking service, Matheson said.

“It’s really important that we have technology that can accommodate the increasing demands for bandwidth,” he said.

A minimum “build-to” standard of 100 megabits per second symmetrical for all federally funded projects also would go a long way, he said. Most co-op broadband is 100/100 Mbps or better, but co-ops often get outbid by large, for-profit competitors who install slower internet connections that leave rural families and businesses struggling.

“Congress can play a key role in establishing that higher standard, which will ensure quality affordability and quality speed,” he said.

Congress also needs to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program to keep broadband “affordable enough for people to use,” he said, noting that electric co-ops serve 92% of the country’s persistent-poverty counties.

More than 200 co-ops are making big investments and building broadband networks with state-of-the-art fiber optics that can be scaled up for greater speed and access. Most entered the broadband business because no other provider would serve their members.

Obstacles in rural areas make delivering broadband more expensive. They include sparse population where connections are miles apart, rugged terrain, harsh conditions, limited labor and chinks in the supply chain.

“Electric cooperatives have that can-do attitude; they know rural America and know how to make it work in hard-to-serve areas,” Matheson said.

“We are owned by the members we serve. Those members asked for broadband service because no one else is offering in those areas. So, the electric cooperative stepped up and said, ‘OK, we’re going to take care of this need.’ It’s a real exciting time in rural America.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today issued the following statement on the confirmation of Anna Gomez to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

“We look forward to working with Commissioner Gomez to advance the needs of rural communities,” said Matheson. “Commissioner Gomez has extensive experience both in the public and the private sectors, and will bring a well-rounded perspective to the Commission and efforts to close the digital divide. We look forward to collaborating with her to ensure that all Americans have access to high-speed broadband at a reasonable price, regardless of their zip code.”

More than 200 electric cooperatives are working to bring broadband to their rural communities through efforts that frequently mirror the push for rural electrification nearly 100 years ago. The cost of building and maintaining networks in sparsely populated areas with difficult terrain has been prohibitive for many for-profit providers. The FCC is an important partner in helping electric co-ops bridge the digital divide.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson today applauded the allocation of $42.5 billion in rural broadband funding to the states. The funding is known as the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program and was included in the bipartisan infrastructure law.

“Efforts to bridge the digital divide began nearly 25 years ago, yet millions of Americans remain sidelined and disconnected simply because of their zip code,” said Matheson. “In 2023, that’s unacceptable. Access to broadband creates new ways to live, learn and earn in rural America. These state allocations are a major milestone in the fight to finally make rural broadband a reality.”

With the state allocations now announced, states can finalize their broadband plans and launch competitive grant programs to award the funds.

More than 200 electric cooperatives are working to bring broadband to their rural communities. For many co-ops, their rural broadband deployment efforts mirror the rural electrification efforts nearly 100 years ago. The cost of building and maintaining networks in sparsely populated areas with difficult terrain has been prohibitive for many providers seeking to turn a profit.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

Electric cooperatives need Congress to improve critical broadband programs to bring high-speed internet service to rural America, NRECA CEO Jim Matheson told a House panel Wednesday.

More than 200 electric co-ops across the U.S. are deploying broadband or developing plans to do so.

“An affordable and reliable internet connection is critical for the growth and development of rural America,” Matheson told the House Agriculture Committee, which is crafting a new five-year Farm Bill that will authorize broadband funding.

“Broadband is no longer a luxury, but instead a necessity for business, education and health care access across the country,” he testified at a hearing on closing the digital divide. “Without these connections, families may choose not to return to the small towns where they grew up, businesses choose to locate elsewhere, and farmers struggle to access the latest technologies that help lower input costs and improve yields.”

Matheson asked the committee to make key improvements to broadband programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture as it develops the Farm Bill:

• Make the ReConnect program permanent and easier to access.
• Provide robust funding for rural broadband through USDA.
• Prioritize symmetrical speeds and scalable networks in any future rounds of federal funding.
• Invest in middle mile infrastructure.

Matheson noted that the committee last year advanced the Broadband Internet Connections for Rural America Act to make the ReConnect program permanent. ReConnect provides grants and loans to fund the construction, improvement or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in rural communities.

As Congress continues to consider that bill and other legislation, co-ops have recommendations about what the focus should be, Matheson said.

“Congress must prioritize scalable, future-proof networks in any future rounds of federal funding,” Matheson said. “Without the ability for networks to grow in response to increased bandwidth needs and consumer demands, the challenge of solving the broadband gap in rural America will persist.”

He said the definition of an area that is unserved by broadband should be expanded to include communities that lack speeds of at least 100 megabits per second for both data uploads and downloads.

“Building networks in low-density, hard-to-reach areas is challenging, but Congress must prioritize networks that can meet consumer demand and ensure that residents in these areas are able to receive quality service regardless of whether they are considered unserved or underserved,” Matheson said.

He said the ReConnect program must be streamlined.

“The ReConnect application process is time consuming and difficult,” Matheson said. “The submission portal is not user friendly, and some have commented that attempting to fill out the program application is like having a second job. For small providers with limited resources, this is incredibly challenging and can be prohibitive.”

The national broadband map created by the Federal Communications Commission still does not accurately show which rural communities are receiving adequate service, he said.

“Despite significant progress in improving the map’s accuracy over the past six months, it is clear that there are still discrepancies between what the map displays and the realities on the ground,” Matheson said. “The continued reliance on advertised speeds instead of actual speeds opens the door to gamesmanship with mapping data and could prevent rural areas from receiving a high-speed internet connection.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Sean McGrath started streaming movies at home in northeast Mississippi 15 years ago. Now his teenage son plays virtual reality games at the speed of light. Fortunately, their electric cooperative is not only keeping up with their demands today but anticipating the broadband their quality of life will require tomorrow.

Alcorn County Electric Power Association, based in Corinth, covers its entire 19,000-meter electric territory with internet service up to 10 gigabits per second through fiber-optic technology known as XGS-PON or 10-Gigabit Symmetrical Passive Optical Networks, considered the fastest residential internet speed within the industry today.

“Every home in our territory is fiber-eligible,” said McGrath, chief financial officer of ACE Power, which began connecting members within 18 months of breaking ground on its fiber network in 2020. “We think that that’s a big, big selling point for our city, county and region. In fact, it’s been so successful that we are venturing off system.”

ACE Fiber, the co-op’s broadband arm, is preparing to pass fiber by another 10,500 homes and businesses in New Albany, about an hour south, and eyeing more residential connections around Blue Springs, home to Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Mississippi Inc.

Within the co-op’s territory, mom and pop businesses are seeing a bump in online customers outside the state. And more members with ACE Fiber are working from home, including for Silicon Valley giants Google and Facebook, leaving “no doubt” that the economic uptick in portions of the county that were unserved or underserved stems from broadband, McGrath said.

“It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “It’s a great selling point for rural Mississippi.”

ACE Power’s 2020 decision to be an early deployer of XGS-PON was a matter of dollars and sense, applying to broadband the computer speed theory of Moore’s Law that transistors should be doubled on an integrated circuit every two years.

“We didn’t want to have to face a rip-and-replace within the first five years of our build,” McGrath said.

The co-op also compared the cost of installing 10-year-old GPON optimal network terminal (ONT) technology with the speedier XGS-PON.

“The conclusion we came to was absolutely we can [afford XGS-PON], because what we can’t afford is when that customer wants to go from 1-gig to a 2-gig service, we’d have to roll a truck and change out that ONT, and now we don’t,” he said. “It’s already in the home.”

Then there was the competition.

The cable company offered download/upload service up to 200/20 megabits per second, but “had really neglected this area for some time,” McGrath said. “Because of that competition, we wanted to be able to offer speeds where we could incrementally leapfrog Comcast if they decided to go to a gig.”

ACE Fiber offers three speed tiers, but about 70% of its 7,500 subscribers take 1- or 2-gigabit internet service.

“It’s going to be probably another two or three years before we have to look at our speed tiers and start adjusting those and go up to a 10-gig tier,” he said.

For electric co-ops just entering broadband or expanding their network, McGrath said he highly recommends going the XGS-PON route.

“You want to be able to have something that differentiates you from the competition,” he said. “I would not hesitate to recommend that a co-op go XGS-PON at this point.”

Access to unbeatable broadband is also key to growing a strong community with vibrant opportunities, McGrath said.

“Growth is being able to provide a place where my kids can come back after they go to school and gain some employment,” he said. “Whether they’re working for a hometown company or whether they’re working from home for someone in Denver, Colorado, being able to do that and have those options I think is important.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Affordable, reliable broadband service is critical for the economic growth of rural communities throughout the nation, an Illinois electric cooperative leader told a Senate panel Wednesday.

“Robust internet access allows students to get the educational resources they need, improves access to medical care in rural communities, and enables farmers to better leverage new technologies to improve crop yields,” Jesse Shekleton, director of broadband operations at Jo-Carroll Energy, told the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy at a hearing on rural broadband.

“This connectivity is critical to fully participate in today’s internet-based economy, and many families and businesses will choose to locate elsewhere if robust internet access is unavailable in rural areas.”

As Congress considers a new five-year Farm Bill, lawmakers “should prioritize scalable, future-proof networks in any future rounds of federal funding for broadband,” Shekleton said.

“Consumer demands and needs for increased internet speeds continue to grow and are trending toward a need for multi-gigabit service by 2030,” he said.

Shekleton also urged Congress to create flexible rules for rural broadband programs. He said Jo-Carroll Energy and other electric co-ops that provide high-speed internet service are often trying to tap into several federal and state funding programs at once to help them deploy broadband.

“Areas currently unserved by broadband are expensive, and Congress should provide the flexibility to leverage multiple programs to offset some of the high costs of deployment so that providers are able to best meet the needs of those rural and remote areas,” he said.

Jo-Carroll Energy, which is based in Elizabeth and serves about 20,000 consumer-members, launched a broadband arm, Sand Prairie Internet, in 2008. It initially offered a fixed wireless system but has since pivoted to a fiber-only network that is much more reliable, Shekleton said.

“Fiber allows JCE to bring rural economic development and prosperity to our communities and enable robust opportunities for education, health care, and agriculture in northwestern Illinois,” he said.

The fiber broadband connection has helped support recently opened businesses, including a local pharmacy and a convenience store that is the only place for residents of the small community to buy groceries.

“It also is a draw for younger families, especially as many have transitioned to hybrid work or are considering the educational needs of their children,” Shekleton said.

More than 80 years after electric co-ops partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to bring electricity to rural America, co-ops are partnering with the agency again “to bring vital broadband service to those same areas,” he said.

“As the committee considers the upcoming Farm Bill, JCE and the rest of our nation’s electric cooperatives look forward to working with you in our shared goal of connecting all Americans, no matter where they live, with a robust and reliable internet connection.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

NRECA urged Congress to reform federal permitting rules before billions of federal dollars become available for rural broadband and to reject for-profit internet providers’ calls to place electric cooperative poles under federal rate regulations.

In testimony April 19 to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, Louis Finkel, NRECA senior vice president for Government Relations, said the federal permitting process “takes too long, is too expensive, and is an impediment to the ability of broadband providers to meet the needs of their consumers and communities.”

More than 200 electric co-ops in 39 states are currently delivering or partnering to deliver broadband to their members.

With the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program and billions more in other funding coming available to close the digital divide, the hearing examined more than 30 proposals that focus on federal, state and local government barriers to rural broadband, such as permitting and reviews. It also touched on attaching communications equipment to utility poles.

To make the most of these once-in-a generation funds, Finkel said, “this process must be modernized to give more certainty and predictability as electric cooperatives and other internet service providers build networks to connect homes and businesses in rural areas.”

National Environmental Policy Act regulations, for instance, “present a significant challenge to rapid broadband deployment” because even co-ops with existing electric rights of way “must renegotiate…agreements with each state or federal agency, local jurisdiction, or private landowner, which can take years and can cost millions of dollars,” Finkel said.

Finkel also told lawmakers that federal agencies must ensure the accuracy of broadband coverage maps before BEAD funds are released to providers to deploy broadband in unserved areas. “Congress must provide flexibility for states to use their own maps and local knowledge in addition to the new FCC maps when determining eligible locations for BEAD,” he said.

On pole attachments, Congress should reject proposals to require the Federal Communications Commission regulated rate be used for access to co-op poles, Finkel said. He dismissed claims of unfair co-op pole attachment rates and explained that co-ops lease excess space on their poles to third parties, or even their own broadband subsidiary, “for a small fraction of the costs that co-ops have incurred to build and maintain these systems.”

“The fees charged to attach to co-op poles reflect the unique geographic and demographic characteristics of each co-op’s service territories, which can vary from state to state and co-op to co-op.”

NRECA, joined by American Public Power Association and the Utilities Technology Council, sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee leadership on why nonprofit electric utilities should maintain their 1978 exemption from FCC rate regulations on pole attachments. Proposed legislation would effectively ask these utilities and their customers “to subsidize for-profit companies’ infrastructure buildout,” they said.

“Congress has repeatedly recognized that federal pole attachment regulation is unnecessary for public power and electric cooperative pole owners, because they are owned by their customers, the same customers that would benefit from communications services provided over the facilities attached to their poles,” NRECA, APPA and UTC wrote the committee April 18.

“Modifying or eliminating the exemption will not result in any significant increases in broadband deployment, adoption, and use. Instead, it will merely result in not-for-profit electric utility customers subsidizing for-profit telecommunications and cable companies.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

AFTON, Virginia—Don’t let the nearly 300-year-old house at the end of a three-mile-long gravel road in rural Virginia fool you. It’s got the fastest internet around as one of 20,000-plus broadband connections made by Central Virginia Electric Cooperative in four years, a milestone recently marked by the co-op.

“I have been released from buffer circle purgatory,” said Susan McSwain, the first resident of the house to get electricity from the co-op and broadband from its subsidiary, Firefly.

“Having Firefly is like having a planetary library on my desk. It’s access to a world of wonder.”

McSwain shared her story at the Arrington-based co-op’s April 5 celebration with 160 representatives from electric co-ops and co-op organizations and state agencies, state and federal lawmakers and CVEC’s partners that worked to get the job done, including Calix, Conexon, Graybar and S&N Communications. Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Bob Good, R-Va., whose districts are served by CVEC, praised the co-op’s milestone and offered bipartisan support for rural broadband.

“To connect 20,000 homes and businesses over four years, you are literally changing lives and communities,” said Good.

The co-op’s fiber network now is available to 40,000 homes and businesses, 90% of which lack other options for broadband service, said Bruce Maurhoff, Firefly’s senior vice president and chief operating officer.

“We placed 14.5 million feet of strand and lash fiber on poles and another 3 million feet in conduit underground,” he said. “That is enough fiber to reach from the first pole where we began in Appomattox all the way to Anchorage, Alaska. And we did it in 52 months.”

The Firefly team described its $150 million trek, which began in 2018 and traveled through its 14-county electric territory, as ambitious as it was capital intensive.

To prepare the system for fiber, CVEC performed make-ready work across its entire system of 4,500 miles of distribution line. The co-op replaced 5,738 poles—far above its typical 100 to 150 poles each year—and set 6,490 anchors. It rearranged equipment on tens of thousands of poles and installed 28 communication huts as network nodes, Maurhoff said.

On the financial side, invoices more than doubled and lines of credit grew exponentially.

“At peak times we could be paying more than $3 million a week for materials, construction or make-ready work,” said Tina Mallia, Firefly’s vice president and chief financial officer. “As you can imagine, a $150 million project in four years can really affect cash flow.”

CVEC previously spent about $15 million per year on infrastructure, but during the last four years, fiber construction cost $35 million to $40 million annually, she said. The co-op’s lines of credit increased from $9.7 million with National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp. and $1 million with CoBank to about $20 million from each lender.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service Electric Program approved a $66 million loan to launch CVEC’s fiber venture. The co-op also won funds from the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Funds Auction and Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and USDA’s ReConnect program for rural broadband. Grants from the state and counties have also helped the co-op achieve its goal, Mallia said.

“These are all important funds that allow us to provide this world-class service at affordable prices for our subscribers,” she said.

The bottom line to winery manager Bill Tonkins is that the co-op’s delivery of broadband during the pandemic kept him in business. Tonkins manages Veritas, the vineyard where Firefly’s event took place

“Firefly broadband helped Veritas survive COVID,” he said. “All of a sudden you had to order online. The point of sale became touch-free. Tastings were ordered through a QR code. We became a no-cash facility. All these things were possible due to having broadband.”

Gary Wood, president and CEO of CVEC and Firefly, thanked the co-op’s board for making the decision to enter broadband despite the challenges and noted how Firefly has been embraced by the community

“Transforming lives—that’s what we’re doing at Firefly in central Virginia,” he said.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, told a large NRECA Broadband gathering that he knows the importance of high-speed internet to rural communities, how fast the technology advances and the role Congress must play in ensuring people served by electric cooperatives are not left behind when billions of dollars flow to bridge the digital divide.

“Broadband is not a Republican issue; it’s not a Democratic issue; it’s not an independent issue,” Latta told the exclusive breakfast Tuesday at NRECA’s 2023 Legislative Conference. “It’s everybody’s issue, and that’s why it’s important that we get the job done.”

Latta chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, where NRECA will bring electric co-op perspectives on broadband regulatory permitting reform and pole attachment issues in a hearing Wednesday. 

With the fast pace of broadband technology development, Latta said his committee must look far ahead when legislating rules and regulations.

“We have to make sure we are getting the laws right,” he said. “This is going to affect people, [and] technology is changing so rapidly.”

Oversight of the new $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will be “very important to us,” said Latta, whose district includes several electric co-ops. The goal will be to avoid excessive fees and delays in building rural broadband projects, he said.

“We want to make sure we get that done so American families can get reliable internet,” he said. “We have to make sure we get it done in the least expensive manner.”

Latta also emphasized the importance of having accurate broadband coverage maps for allocating billions of federal dollars to unserved areas.

He noted how significant high-speed connectivity has become since the pandemic, with telehealth now the norm and school children expected to do their homework online. Many small towns and communities, however, remain challenged.

“We need to make sure we have broadband out there so our kids can compete,” Latta said. “We want to make sure people who live in rural areas can live there and survive.”

NRECA Broadband launched last year and has gained nearly 100 electric cooperative and statewide association members that receive exclusive services, benefits and access to events that support their efforts to deploy high-speed internet. For more information, contact Brian O’Hara, NRECA senior regulatory affairs director, or Katie Culleton, NRECA legislative affairs director.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

More Coverage From Legislative Conference:

Top Policymakers Address Electric Co-op Leaders at NRECA’s Legislative Conference
What Electric Co-ops Need From Policymakers to Close the Digital Divide
NRECA CEO: Reliable Electricity Is Main Focus of Legislative Conference

As more than 200 electric cooperatives enter the broadband space to connect unserved communities in 39 states, NRECA is asking federal policymakers for a few fixes to help co-ops reach their members.

“A number of electric cooperatives have stepped up to the plate and actually helped meet that demand in terms of successfully offering broadband within their areas,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said in a media call April 17 as 2,000 electric co-op representatives gathered in Washington, D.C., for NRECA’s 2023 Legislative Conference.

But to facilitate their efforts to close the digital divide, Matheson said co-op leaders on Capitol Hill and at key federal agencies this week are raising four issues:

• Continue funding for ReConnect, the rural broadband grant and loan program under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and improve its efficiency.

• Define broadband for federal assistance as a minimum symmetrical speed of 100 megabits per second upload and download.

• Increase funding for building middle-mile fiber networks that will enable more broadband connections in rural areas.

• Collect more accurate information for mapping regions with true broadband to ensure federal dollars go to unserved areas.

“We want universal access for all of our members, including that member at the end of the line who may be five miles from the next connection,” Matheson said. “That’s why electric cooperatives are very well situated—knowing those communities, knowing those service territories—to close that digital divide in these sparsely populated areas in a better way than anyone else.”

Two CEOs of co-ops that have built broadband to all their members joined Matheson on the call to share their experiences. Tim Johnson, who leads Otsego Electric Cooperative and its broadband subsidiary in Hartwick, New York, said the 5,000-meter co-op’s fiber-to-the-home service is meeting the community’s need.

“The COVID-19 pandemic proved that out,” he said. “Undeniably, people were virtually desperate. We had just finished building all of our infrastructure, about 700 miles, and the phone rang off the hook for months until we got to everybody we possibly could.”

Mitchell Johnson of Ozarks Electric Cooperative in Fayetteville, Arkansas, said the co-op’s broadband subsidiary has deployed 7,000 miles of fiber and joined 12 other Arkansas co-ops to build a 50,000-mile middle-mile fiber network for greater speed, reliability and savings for 1.2 million customers.

“We know that our 10-gigabit capacity will lower cost for access to the internet, and the entire state and the cooperatives will benefit from that middle-mile network,” Johnson said. “We do think that public policy needs to support cooperative-owned middle-mile networks.”

Matheson also underscored the “value of the cooperative model and the cooperative approach if we’re really going to solve this problem in these very hard-to-serve, sparsely populated areas.”

“We’ve been responsible with the federal funding we’ve received,” he said. “We continue to be proud of that record, and we’re going to continue to advocate for electric co-ops to have a seat at the table, because we think we’re part of an important solution.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

More Coverage From Legislative Conference:

Top Policymakers Address Co-op Leaders at NRECA’s Legislative Conference
NRECA CEO: Reliable Electricity Is Main Focus of Legislative Conference
Rep. Bob Latta: Rural Connectivity ‘Is Everybody’s Issue’

Electric cooperatives will soon have access to $9.7 billion in grants and loans to buy or build new clean energy systems, Rural Utilities Service Administrator Andy Berke told co-op leaders Monday at NRECA’s Legislative Conference.

Berke said the U.S. Department of Agriculture is poised to roll out the program in the coming days. It was approved last August when Congress passed the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act.

“This is huge,” Berke told 2,000-plus conference attendees. “We have to make sure that you can make the energy transition that is coming without breaking the bank.”

The voluntary program will provide funding for a wide range of projects, including renewable energy, carbon capture, battery energy storage systems, nuclear power and improvements to generation and transmission efficiency. Interested co-ops will be eligible to receive an award for up to 25% of their project costs, with a maximum of $970 million going to any one co-op.

“This is an enormous opportunity,” he said. “We don’t know when it is going to happen again. Please take this opportunity. It’s available because of your advocacy.”

Berke drew applause when he announced that RUS, beginning this week, is shrinking the size of environmental review paperwork that co-ops have to fill out when they apply for loans from a minimum of 70 pages down to just four pages.

He said he listened to concerns about the process from co-op leaders at NRECA’s PowerXchange in Nashville, Tennessee, in March and made the change based on their feedback. He said he hopes it will expedite co-op construction projects.

“We know that a project today is better—and more importantly cheaper—than a project tomorrow,” Berke said.

Sen. Boozman Honored With Distinguished Service Award

Also on Monday, Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., received NRECA’s Distinguished Service Award, which honors members of Congress who make essential contributions to electric co-ops and the communities they serve.

“Sen. John Boozman, an electric cooperative member, has been a friend to the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas throughout his years in public service,” said Buddy Hasten, president and CEO of the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas. “Sen. Boozman’s dedication as an advocate for Arkansans clearly aligns with the mission of our state’s electric cooperatives.”

Boozman, the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, said he is hopeful that Congress will be able to pass one of NRECA’s top legislative priorities this year: a new five-year Farm Bill that includes full funding for rural economic development and broadband programs. The current Farm Bill expires Oct. 1.

“Farm Bills aren’t about Democrats or Republicans,” he said. “They’re bipartisan. I think we’ve got a great chance of getting it done.”

DOE Official: ‘Reliability Is the Foundation’

Gene Rodrigues, assistant secretary of energy for electricity, said he shares NRECA’s goal of ensuring that the electric grid “remains reliable, resilient and affordable for all Americans.” The importance of grid reliability is the main message that co-op leaders are taking to Capitol Hill and federal agencies this week.

“We are all in agreement with every single one of you in this room that reliability is the foundation of everything we want to do,” he said.

Unfortunately, the American people and many of their elected officials “take it for granted” that the lights will always come on when they flip the switch, Rodrigues said.

“That’s a problem,” he said, urging co-op leaders to “advocate, educate and collaborate” to sound the alarm about the potential risks to reliability.

“If it’s taken for granted, then we won’t have the champions we need to keep electricity reliable and affordable over time. … Make sure they understand the absolute necessity of investing in a 21^st century power grid for the American people.”

Spanberger Lauds Co-op Role in Closing Digital Divide

“Rural communities feed and fuel the rest of Virginia and our nation,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., told conference participants. “Unfortunately, at times it seems like rural America can get left out of the conversations on infrastructure and economic development.”

She said that electric co-ops serve 40% of her constituents and are helping to bring essential broadband service to rural communities that for-profit internet providers ignore.

“I’m so grateful to your [NRECA] members for working to bring broadband,” Spanberger said.

The bipartisan infrastructure law’s $65 billion in broadband funding will help close the digital divide and “strengthen our rural economy for the next generation of Americans,” she said.

Freshman House Members Push for Bipartisan Solutions

Freshman Reps. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., and Don Davis, D-N.C., were both elected in 2022 and represent electric cooperative members in rural communities. They told co-op leaders that they are frustrated by the fierce partisan divide in Congress and hope to work together as members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

“There’s too much extremism, and it comes from both sides—let’s be honest about it,” Davis said.

Ciscomani, who described his district’s voters as one-third Republican, one-third Democratic and one-third independent, said he has set up an advisory committee back home made up of local leaders with diverse political ideologies.

“There is an appetite in our country for people to work together to find solutions,” he said.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

More Coverage From Legislative Conference:

What Electric Co-ops Need From Policymakers to Close the Digital Divide
NRECA CEO: Reliable Electricity Is Main Focus of Legislative Conference
Rep. Bob Latta: Rural Connectivity ‘Is Everybody’s Issue’

White River Valley Electric Cooperative credits overwhelming member support for winning Missouri’s largest broadband grant from American Rescue Plan Act funds—$47.3 million—to help connect its rugged service territory.

“We had a large number of letters supporting our project from businesses, organizations in our communities, and from state legislators,” said Beau Jackson, CEO of White River Connect, the electric co-op’s broadband subsidiary.

The state Broadband Infrastructure Grant Program “emphasized the importance of local support,” he said. “When I went through the applications, I can see pages and pages of these letters.”

The Branson-based co-op, which earned board approval only last July, braced for low returns on its seven applications for funds to build a high-speed internet network across its five-county service area nestled in the Ozark Mountains.

When the state announced the award on Jan. 23, “I about fell out of my seat,” Jackson said. “I think what they saw in the applications is not that we had pretty letterhead. It’s just that we made the case that our communities are in need of fast and reliable internet service.”

Three counties served by the co-op even offered to reallocate over $9 million in ARPA funds they received for other projects toward White River’s broadband build, he added.

“That resonates that there is a need when we’re receiving that much local support,” Jackson said.

White River Connect has been working with NRTC to design and develop the project. Groundbreaking on the $260 million, five-year all fiber-optic build is expected in the third quarter of this year. Fiber-to-the-home connections are scheduled to begin in 2024.

The co-op will be able to offer subscribers speeds above 1 gigabit for data uploads and downloads to meet future demand for bandwidth.

“This grant is a huge win for the co-op and our communities,” Jackson said. “We are very excited and can’t wait to get it done and make a difference in people’s lives and our communities.”

Other electric co-ops awarded broadband grants by the state included Tipton-based Co-Mo Comm with $2.8 million; Trenton-based Grundy Electric Cooperative’s broadband subsidiary, Mid-States Services, LLC,  $6 million; Butler-based Osage Valley Electric Cooperative Association, $9.5 million; El Dorado Springs-based Sac Osage Electric Cooperative, $3 million; Sikeston-based SEMO Electric Cooperative, $16.6 million; and Savannah-based United Electric Cooperative’s broadband subsidiary, United Services, Inc., $8 million.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

More than 200 electric cooperatives have already built or started work to offer broadband either on their own or in a partnership. Now, with tens of billions of dollars in federal and state money being allocated to bring high-speed internet to unserved and underserved areas, the number of co-ops entering broadband could potentially double in the coming years.

But as a co-op, what does it take to plan, build and run a broadband business? And what resources are available to help?

In this episode, we’re joined by:

• Paul Breakman, NRECA’s vice president of cooperative business solutions.
• Craig Eccher, former CEO of Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative in Pennsylvania and its Tri-County Connections subsidiary, one of the nation’s first co-op-run broadband companies.
• Bill Gerski, vice president of marketing and sales at Beacon Broadband, a subsidiary of Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative in Oregon.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

As Congress considers a new five-year Farm Bill, lawmakers should ensure that rural Americans have access to high-speed internet service that will meet their needs well into the future, the leader of a Pennsylvania electric cooperative told a House committee Friday.

“The Farm Bill provides an opportunity to continue to support lasting, scalable, ‘future-proof’ broadband network deployment in rural areas,” said Aaron Young, president and co-CEO of Mansfield-based Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative, which serves nearly 17,000 consumer-members.

“To connect every rural home, business and community with reliable internet service, federal support programs should prioritize technologies and speeds that can meet the needs of today as well as tomorrow.”

Young, who is also the co-CEO of the co-op’s broadband subsidiary, Tri-Co Connections, compared today’s demand for rural broadband service to the push for the electrification of rural America in the 1930s.

“Rural areas are hard to reach and expensive to serve,” he said at a Farm Bill listening session held by the House Agriculture Committee at the 2023 Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg.

“Electric cooperatives, owned by the members that we serve, are increasingly getting into the broadband business to provide these essential connections for everyday life. Without high-speed internet, people move elsewhere.”

The 2023 Farm Bill will authorize funding for a variety of programs run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including broadband programs, which offer loans and grants to electric co-ops and other organizations to deploy high-speed internet in rural areas that lack sufficient access. The goal is to help fuel long-term economic development in those communities.

Federal support for broadband helps Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative “bridge the digital divide ensuring that rural northwestern Pennsylvanian families and businesses have access to the fastest internet available,” Young said.

The bill will also include programs to help co-ops continue “to deliver affordable, reliable electric service to rural America and to foster rural economic development,” he said.

“USDA programs like the RUS Electric Loan Program, Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant Program, Rural Energy Savings Program and Rural Energy for America Program are all critical programs for electric cooperatives around the country.”

Co-ops would like to collaborate with House Agriculture Committee members to help craft the Farm Bill this year, Young said.

“Electric cooperatives across the country look forward to working together with you in our shared goal of improving life in rural America.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

NRECA is diving into 2023 with a long list of policy goals that range from shaping a new five-year Farm Bill to helping electric cooperatives prepare for catastrophic wildfires.

“All of our priorities are aimed at helping our members maintain reliable and affordable power and giving them tools to help meet the challenges of the future,” said Hill Thomas, NRECA’s vice president of legislative affairs.

Thomas and Ashley Slater, NRECA’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said their teams will work closely together to help pass legislation that benefits co-ops and then ensure that those new laws are implemented as intended.

Co-ops saw major policy wins in 2021 and 2022 with passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law and key co-op provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, and NRECA will continue its efforts this year to ensure that members benefit fully from the programs created by those laws.

In a recent Q&A session, Thomas and Slater outlined what’s ahead for co-op policy goals.

What are NRECA’s top regulatory priorities for 2023?

Slater: I have a long list!

• Implementing NRECA’s two priority provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act: direct-pay energy tax credits and the $9.7 billion U.S. Department of Agriculture program to assist co-ops with the energy transition.

• Shaping agency funding opportunity announcements for co-op programs included in the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law. Those programs include rural broadband, electric vehicle programs to build a network of chargers, grid resiliency and modernization, physical security and cybersecurity, and clean energy programs.

• Protecting co-op access to an affordable, reliable power supply as the Environmental Protection Agency looks to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants.

• Ensuring sound transmission policy as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission contemplates first-in-a-decade transmission reform.

• Ensuring that the Department of Energy uses its presidentially directed Defense Production Act authority appropriately to ease supply chain shortages.

• Ensuring that any new cybersecurity or physical security reporting requirements by the Department of Homeland Security are optimized for co-ops to enhance their security posture and improve their ability to protect against, detect and respond to—or recover from—threats to the electric system.

• Modernizing environmental permitting. The existing processes take too long, are too expensive and are an impediment to co-ops’ ability to meet future energy needs. They need to be modernized to give more certainty in the energy transition.

• Working with co-ops to prepare for and respond to catastrophic wildfires. Co-ops that want to do vegetation management are running into inconsistent guidance from the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. We need to work with the agencies to streamline the process.

• Working with co-ops to ensure that the broadband maps produced by the Federal Communications Commission are done correctly to provide the best picture of where broadband is and isn’t available across the country. The FCC has released a pre-production draft of its latest broadband maps.

What are NRECA’s top legislative priorities for 2023?

Thomas: For the first couple of months, our top priority will be holding Co-op 101 sessions to meet the 81 new members of Congress and educate them about electric cooperatives. Beyond that, we want to make sure Congress is engaged when they need to be to ensure the legislation that has already passed is implemented the right way to benefit co-ops and their members.

A new five-year Farm Bill is being written by Congress that will affect electric co-ops and all of rural America, so that will be a priority. And we support a bipartisan permitting modernization conversation. Also, we’re going to continue to face supply chain problems, and we’re going to continue to work to solve that.

We’ve already had co-op leaders come and testify to Congress about the upcoming Farm Bill. How will it affect electric co-ops specifically?

Thomas: The Farm Bill is the only piece of legislation that Congress does that is uniquely and specifically aimed at rural America. It is designed to support rural America and we share that goal. It’s important for us to talk about our priorities, including many of the USDA programs that we use such as rural development financing, the home energy efficiency program and clean energy deployment financing. These programs can be reauthorized in the new Farm Bill, and we want to make sure they’re operating as effectively as possible and are good to go for the next five years.

The other big conversation will be about broadband. There’s an opportunity to rewrite and improve the USDA ReConnect broadband program, which has provided opportunities to many of our members but could also operate more efficiently. It’s a fairly new program that has received lots of money, but some of our members haven’t been able to get access to it because it’s just too bureaucratic. We need to streamline the program so we can serve the communities that need it most.

Is the environment in the Biden administration and in Congress, with divided government, conducive to accomplishing NRECA’s goals?

Thomas: On the congressional side, with the House majority and the president being from different parties, it is going to be a tough environment for big, game-changing legislation. But we have a good reputation for being able to bridge gaps and find partnerships and bipartisanship. I think there will be lots of opportunities for us to engage in these important conversations.

Slater: We recognize that resource planning decisions are unique to the needs of the specific co-op and the communities they serve. The administration understands that if they want their policies to have a real impact, they have to reach rural America. And they can’t get there without electric co-ops.

That presents a real opportunity for our members who want to participate. In order to push an energy transition across the country, if you want to get there, you have to go through electric co-ops. If there’s no uptake, you’re not going to be successful in getting these dollars utilized…To the extent that we can be a conduit, that’s our edge.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Eight electric cooperatives that have teamed up to build 3,000 miles of broadband fiber infrastructure to deliver internet access to Alabama’s disadvantaged communities have won an $82.4 million grant to get the job done.

“The Alabama Middle-Mile project—the infrastructure setting part of this journey—is going to lead our state to be the model for the nation when it comes to providing broadband capabilities,” said Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who awarded the grant to the Fiber Utility Network on Sept. 27 at Central Alabama Electric Cooperative in Prattville.

In addition to Central Alabama EC, co-ops in the network are: Coosa Valley Electric Cooperative, Covington Electric Cooperative, Cullman Electric Cooperative, Joe Wheeler EMC, North Alabama Electric Cooperative, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative and Tombigbee Electric Cooperative. They plan to complete the middle-mile fiber build within three years.

“The project is the springboard to supplying broadband services for rural residents,” said Kenneth Boswell, director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, which will administer the award.

“I commend the Fiber Utility Network for their willingness to undertake this necessary step to ensure more Alabamians have access to these services.”

By building the infrastructure needed by “last-mile” internet providers to hook up homes and businesses, the co-ops offer “more cost-effective and feasible ways to provide broadband service availability to residents in rural areas,” according to the governor’s office.

The Alabama legislature this year approved using a portion of the state’s funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to assist the co-ops’ middle-mile fiber build. Congress passed the sweeping $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill in early 2021.

Tom Stackhouse, Central Alabama EC’s president and CEO and president of the Fiber Utility Network, thanked state officials “for the vision, leadership and assistance to make this a reality.”

“The eight electric cooperatives that make up the Fiber Utility Network are honored to be a part of building a middle mile network to bring internet service closer to those Alabamians,” he said.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Tennessee is giving $198 million—nearly half its allotment for rural broadband from the federal American Rescue Plan—to 11 electric cooperatives to build high-speed internet in unserved communities across the state.

“This is a historic day for electric co-ops and the communities we serve,” said Mike Knotts, vice president of government affairs at the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association in Nashville.

“These grant awards are a testament to the incredible efforts of individual electric co-op teams across the state, and this announcement should be celebrated by thousands of Tennessee families and businesses that will soon have fast, reliable and affordable broadband options.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Sept. 12 announced a total of $446 million in grants for rural internet service providers from the Tennessee Emergency Broadband Fund, which received ARP money for economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress passed the $1.9 trillion relief bill in March 2021.

Electric co-ops received 44% of the funds—more than any other group of internet providers—a recognition that co-ops have a “unique ability to construct broadband networks quickly and efficiently,” Knotts said. “We are honored by the extraordinary trust they place in electric co-ops.”

Grant winners must provide matching funds and deliver internet at speeds of at least 100 megabits per second download and 20 Mbps upload within three years to areas identified as unserved. The co-ops will apply their grants to 33 broadband projects.

Southwest Tennessee Electric Membership Corp., based in Brownsville, recently purchased an existing internet provider, Aeneas, and will receive grants of $19 million and $20 million for two separate broadband projects. The remaining 10 co-ops and their grants are as follows:

• Appalachian Electric Cooperative/Trilight, $8.6 million
• Chickasaw Electric Cooperative, $13 million
• Cumberland Electric Membership Corp., $17.5 million
• Fayetteville Public Utilities, $9 million
• Gibson Electric Membership Corp., $2 million
• Middle Tennessee Electric/United Communications, $53 million
• Meriwether Lewis Electric Cooperative, $4.5 million
• Powell Valley Electric Cooperative/Scott County Telephone, $13 million
• Tennessee Valley Electric Cooperative, $22 million
• Volunteer Energy Cooperative, $15 million

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

The number of electric cooperatives that are providing broadband internet access already exceeds 200, and many others are weighing the possibility. Now, with tens of billions of dollars in federal and state funding available and an unprecedented national resolve in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to close the digital divide, co-ops are poised to take an even more prominent role in bringing broadband to unserved and underserved communities.

Over the past few years, co-ops have reached out to NRECA for assistance with the many unique challenges involved with entering the telecommunications sector. This year, the association made the decision to launch NRECA Broadband, a new service tier for its member co-ops that will leverage NRECA’s expertise, influence and reputation.

In this episode, NRECA Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Connor serves as our special guest host in a discussion with NRECA CEO Jim Matheson about what went into the decision to form NRECA Broadband and where it’s headed.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

NRECA has launched a new level of service for electric cooperatives that provide broadband or are considering offering it.

NRECA Broadband, which opened July 12 to NRECA voting members, offers a growing number of exclusive resources, including additional legislative and regulatory experts to represent participating co-ops’ interests in Washington, D.C.

“Through this new service tier, we aim to be a strong, united voice in Washington to represent our unique interests and stand toe-to-toe with big telecom.”

Co-ops that participate in NRECA Broadband will gain access to new strategic communications services, education and events, and focused business and technology support in addition to targeted advocacy. The first NRECA Broadband Leadership Summit for tier participants will take place Nov. 17-18 in Washington, D.C.

“This new level of service will amplify our voice as a national organization in Washington, where telecommunication issues are discussed and where telecommunication business policies are decided,” NRECA Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Connor said.

“This is about building partnerships that NRECA can develop to be a more powerful voice for our members’ interests,” he said.

Participation in NRECA Broadband is voluntary and open to any NRECA voting electric co-op. The annual fee for co-ops that are in the broadband business is $12,000 plus $1 per broadband customer. The annual fee for co-ops not yet delivering broadband is $6,000.

Matheson said the time was right to expand NRECA’s service in broadband as hundreds of member co-ops work to bridge America’s digital divide.

“NRECA’s mission is to be an advocate for quality of life in the rural and diverse communities our members serve and has been for 80 years,” Matheson said. “NRECA Broadband services are a natural extension of our advocacy. We are committed to serve electric cooperatives for broadband as we do for the electric side of their business.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Related Content
• Members Trust Co-ops to Deliver Quality Broadband, Survey Says

A northern Alabama trade school has long prepared teens for jobs ranging from auto mechanic to hairstylist. Now, thanks to a partnership with the local electric cooperative, high schoolers will be able to train this fall for one of the country’s fastest growing career paths: broadband fiber technician.

Driven by member growth, the demands of its new broadband subsidiary and the lack of internet access in much of rural America, Cullman Electric Cooperative worked with the Cullman Area Technology Academy to develop a new curriculum that covers fiber installation skills and electric linework training.

“Building and maintaining our electrical infrastructure along with the fiber-optic cable and broadband equipment that power Sprout Fiber Internet requires skilled and well-trained men and women,” said Tim Culpepper, CEO of the Cullman-based co-op.

The program “will prepare students for good-paying jobs that are in high demand both locally and across the country and will help meet Cullman Electric’s workforce needs into the future.”

Students who successfully complete the full-semester program will leave as certified fiber optic technicians with credentials from the National Center for Construction Education and Research and CPR certification.

“This course will allow students to enter the workforce with the fundamental skills needed to further their education through work-based training or in a pre-apprenticeship program,” said Brian Lacy, Cullman Electric’s manager of communications and external affairs.

The co-op is donating $80,000 to CATA to fund modern broadband and lineworker training gear, including fiber splicers and personal protective equipment. Half the donation comes from a matching grant by the Tennessee Valley Authority for COVID-19 response programs.

Cullman Electric also plans to have co-op engineers, lineworkers and fiber techs share their knowledge with students in hands-on lessons at the co-op’s training facility.

Lacy said a key goal for the co-op is to incentivize qualified technicians to join its fast-growing fiber subsidiary, which launched in July 2020 and will soon complete its phase-one buildout to 12,000 co-op members.

In Cullman’s territory, the median annual salary for a power lineworker is about $65,000. It’s about $45,000 for an entry-level broadband fiber technician.

“We want the kids growing up here to have the opportunity to stay here and raise a family here and feel confident that they can have a good-paying job and work for a great company,” he said. “But it’s not just about meeting our needs. The program will provide students with skillsets in demand nationwide for years to come.”

The program is open to local high school juniors who apply and do well in a screening interview.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

An electric cooperative is working to make high-speed internet service available to every family living on the Zuni reservation in New Mexico by this summer.

“Today’s digital divide will be permanently bridged with modern fiber-optic technology to virtually every Zuni residence,” said Robert Castillo, CEO of Continental Divide Electric Cooperative. The reservation is 40 miles south of Gallup and about 75 miles west of Grants, where the co-op is headquartered.

CDEC’s Red Bolt Broadband unit is working with the tribal government to expand broadband infrastructure into population centers accounting for 2,200 households in two counties located within the 723-square-mile reservation, east of the Arizona state line.

Funding for the project is a mix of state, tribal and co-op money. The lion’s share of construction money—$3.3 million—comes from New Mexico’s Universal Service Fund through a competitive grant awarded by the state’s Public Regulation Commission. CDEC is funding the balance. The Zuni tribal government is picking up the cost of each end user’s service with money it was awarded through last year’s American Rescue Plan Act.

The project expands on work previously done with the Federal Communication Commission’s Universal Service Fund, which extended high-speed internet service to the reservation’s libraries and schools in 2020.

The co-op has already developed the backbone for broadband expansion by utilizing communications lines serving the supervisory control and data acquisition system along its electric transmission and distribution lines.

“We expect to be able to connect as many as 500 homes a month,” said William Dixon, the co-op’s telecommunications manager. “We’ve been working on this series of projects for so long that we’ve got relationships with material vendors and construction contractors who’ve tentatively committed to work with us, and we’re firming up those agreements now.”

In addition to enhancing distance-learning opportunities for students living on the reservation, high-speed internet will also improve remote work and entertainment options for residents and will open e-commerce opportunities for Zuni artists and crafters.

“Despite our remote location, the rural community of Zuni will soon have broadband infrastructure and service on par with the best in the nation,” said Zuni Gov. Val Panteah Sr.

The co-op’s contract with the tribe calls for delivery of 1-gigabit broadband service for three years at bulk rates and no costs passed on to tribal members.

“We believe it is exactly the kind of project and use of federal funds contemplated by ARPA,” Panteah said.

While the Zunis are the first CDEC members to benefit from internet infrastructure funding under ARPA, the co-op is working on other broadband expansion opportunities.

An application for a nearly $38 million grant from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund could lead to funding for buildout of the communications network serving the majority of the co-op’s 18,000 members.

“Many of the projects we’re pursuing build on the fiber-optic communications technology we began deploying in 2017,” said Dixon. “It’s providing real-time data and information to our headquarters from our substations and improving communications service to public facilities. Within a few months, it will bring modern high-speed communications to our members in Zuni.”

Derrill Holly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Leaders of a Georgia electric cooperative that received a $25 million rural broadband grant from American Rescue Plan Act funds say they feel part of a movement that harkens back to the co-op’s original reason for being: to serve the unserved.

“We are bringing fiber internet service of up to 1 gigabit to areas that have no service at all,” said Wayne Livingston, president and CEO of Diverse Power.

“We’re going to go to the last-mile folks who didn’t get any service from the big providers, like electricity in the 1930s.”

The Lagrange-based electric co-op is one of seven in the state that won a total of $130 million in grants from ARPA funds to build broadband that will serve at least 65,000 across Georgia. Congress passed the $1.9 trillion bill in March of last year to provide COVID-19 relief.

Diverse Power and its telecom subsidiary, Kudzu Networks, will deploy broadband fiber across approximately 46% of its service territory to reach 4,769 unserved homes in five counties. The project is expected to take four years and cost $39 million.

Other Georgia co-ops that got grants for broadband builds were:

• Altamaha EMC, $5.9 million to serve 2,171 customers.
• Central Georgia EMC, $25 million to serve 19,996.
• Flint Energies, $25 million to serve 10,659.
• Ocmulgee EMC, $19 million to serve 9,000.
• Southern Rivers Energy, $15.6 million to serve 10,674.
• Washington EMC, $13.2 million to serve 6,500.

Five other Georgia co-ops—Amicalola, Colquitt, Grady, Oconee and Sumter EMCs—supported applications that won a total of $172 million from ARPA funds to connect another 62,000 customers.

“Rural communities have long waited for broadband service, which is essential to compete in today’s digital world,” said Dennis Chastain, president and CEO of the Georgia Electric Membership Corp. based in Tucker.

“The pandemic brought the issue to the forefront and shined a light on the disparities between communities, businesses and people with and without broadband access.”

Diverse Power, among the first electric co-ops in the state to enter the broadband business, has already begun construction for the area covered by this grant, which will help make the service affordable, Livingston said.

“The main reason we went after this is the need our members have for broadband,” he said. “They are so grateful that we are doing this for them. It’s good for our co-op, and it’s fun.”

To learn more about growing opportunities for co-op broadband, check out a recent episode of LiveWire, NRECA’s new video series.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

An electric cooperative in Southside Virginia just scored a hat trick of creative solutions in deploying broadband to its region.

First, in 2019, Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative’s for-profit broadband subsidiary, EMPOWER Broadband, acquired a telephone cooperative with some fiber assets in its electric territory to optimize internet access and accelerate deployment for its underserved communities.

Then last year, the Chase City-based co-op partnered with Dominion Energy Virginia for middle-mile fiber to help connect the investor-owned electric utility’s customers in that sparsely populated part of the state.

Now, Mecklenburg EC has acquired a cable television company that will allow EMPOWER Broadband to continue expanding its high-speed broadband service to another 2,000 homes and businesses.

“The opportunity to fast-track the delivery of service to so many homes is a game-changer for those communities,” said David Jones, EMPOWER Broadband’s chairman.

“The timing and impact presented by this development allow us to overcome the hurdles of inadequate internet faced by families and students in these areas, and EMPOWER is delivering this much needed service.”

Conversion and upgrade of equipment from CWA Cable TV Inc. to EMPOWER Broadband’s network is expected to begin in March, a couple months behind schedule due to supply chain shortages. The job should take about three months.

“This is a perfect example of co-ops adapting their technology mission and circumstances to bring the best broadband service possible to their member-owners in a timely manner,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA senior regulatory director for broadband and telecom.

EMPOWER Broadband is investing about $1.5 million to convert the existing analog television system’s coaxial cable network into a fiber-fed Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.1 system.

“By converting CWA’s existing facilities in three communities that are infrastructure challenges, we will be able to radically accelerate broadband deployment to our members there,” said John Lee, president and CEO of Mecklenburg EC and EMPOWER.

“This DOCSIS technology is almost identical to fiber in performance, is hardwired so it is weather and terrain proof, and it has available system upgrades that ensure its ability to continue delivering robust, reliable service even as additional customers take advantage of this excellent broadband option.”

Launched in 2018, EMPOWER has connected more than 4,000 homes and businesses, schools, medical and emergency facilities with broadband and telephone services.

To learn more about growing opportunities for co-op broadband, check out the first episode of LiveWire, NRECA’s new video series.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Electric cooperatives throughout the nation are poised to reap the benefits in 2022 of legislation passed by Congress last year that includes co-op priorities pushed by NRECA and its members.

The biggest success was passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which will give a major boost to co-ops by providing billions for broadband deployment, electric vehicle charging networks, electric transmission, energy storage, carbon capture and other clean energy technologies.

In 2022, NRECA will continue to advocate for direct federal incentives for co-ops to develop new energy resources and technologies, including renewable energy, battery storage projects, nuclear energy facilities and carbon capture, said Hill Thomas, vice president of legislative affairs.

NRECA will also push for passage of the Flexible Financing for Rural America Act. The bill could save co-ops more than $10 billion in interest payments by allowing them to reprice loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service at lower interest rates.

Here is Thomas’s perspective on this year’s legislative session:

What do you consider NRECA’s major legislative successes for 2021?

Thomas: We did a good job in a Congress that was stalled by COVID-19 in a world where most offices are still virtual and lawmakers are still singularly focused on just one or two items. I think we adapted well to that environment. Looking back, our biggest successes would be carving out what could be once-in-a-generation opportunities for co-ops in the infrastructure bill and, even though it’s not done, positioning ourselves well to defend against bad outcomes in the budget reconciliation bill while creating some new opportunities for financing for clean energy technologies.

What impact will the American Rescue Plan Act, which Congress passed last March to provide COVID-19 relief, have this year on co-ops?

Thomas: One of the most important policy lessons learned during the pandemic was the lack of broadband access in rural America. The American Rescue Plan sent a lot of money to states that can be used for broadband deployment in rural areas. One of the lasting policy opportunities to come from that bill is that many co-ops will be able to use the money to bring broadband to rural communities.

There seems to be enormous interest among co-ops in applying for funds created by the infrastructure bill for broadband deployment, electric vehicle infrastructure, clean energy technologies and more. What are you hearing from co-ops about their intentions, and how is NRECA helping them apply for this money?

Thomas: There’s a lot of interest in the opportunities created by the infrastructure bill, whether that’s broadband, grid resiliency, cybersecurity, electric vehicles or clean energy. In a lot of ways, the process that created these programs is just the beginning. There will be regulatory processes of various lengths that will provide details about what applications for those funds might look like.

Our goal is to provide as much information to our members as possible so they can make good decisions about what opportunities match up with their strategic priorities. NRECA has developed an infrastructure hub on cooperative.com that provides detailed information to our members as these programs and funding opportunities emerge. And we will continue to partner with our members to make sure they get as much value out of these opportunities as possible.

Last year, the House passed a sweeping budget reconciliation bill that included direct-pay incentives for co-ops to develop clean energy technologies and a $10 billion voluntary program for co-ops interested in transitioning away from fossil fuels. What do you see happening with those two legislative priorities this year?

Thomas: I’d start by saying that our efforts on the budget reconciliation bill were both offensive and defensive, including playing defense against potentially overly aggressive and burdensome clean energy targets. We think we did a good job in defending against those unreasonable mandates. At the same time, there are several good opportunities for co-ops included in the House-passed bill and in ongoing Senate negotiations, including direct-pay incentives for energy technology and the $10 billion in clean energy transition funds.

As we begin 2022, we are in much the same place, with uncertainty remaining about the size and the shape of a bill that can pass the Senate. The Senate has committed to try to continue to find compromise on a bill that can pass. We continue to be well-positioned to defend against any bad policy mandates while protecting meaningful opportunities for co-ops.

If the Senate can’t reach a compromise, do you see other legislative vehicles for passing these co-op priorities?

Thomas: If the budget reconciliation process fades, we will look for other opportunities to push these priorities. These are the types of tools that meet co-ops where they are and give them voluntary incentives to implement their unique strategic plans. So, we’ll be looking for ways to advocate for these legislative priorities individually if the broader package fails.

There probably will be fewer opportunities for legislative work to get done as the election approaches, but we think these are strong priorities and we’re going to keep looking for other vehicles.

The Flexible Financing for Rural America Act was reintroduced last year and has attracted a great many co-sponsors in Congress. Do you see a path forward for this RUS repricing bill to pass this year?

Thomas: RUS repricing remains a top priority for us. It enjoys strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, so we think there’s still an opportunity to move it this year. It continues to remain an important opportunity for our members.

What are NRECA’s other legislative priorities for 2022?

Thomas: Broadband continues to be an important and ongoing issue among our members and an urgent need across rural America. It’s one of the few bipartisan issues in Congress, and it’s an issue that we will continue to focus on. Even though it doesn’t expire until 2023, the Farm Bill reauthorization process will start in earnest this year, and we will be doing the prework to make sure that the bill is as supportive of electric co-ops as it can be.

Another issue that we continue to watch closely is supply chain problems, so the advocacy team will continue to work with Congress and the administration to develop solutions to speed the availability of equipment for our members.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Four electric cooperatives in Virginia will provide high-speed internet access across 20 counties and connect more than 50,000 residents and businesses after winning $162 million in recently announced state and federal grants.

The funds, part of $722 million in universal broadband service awards, are expected to be made available beginning this year. They will reimburse providers as they build networks in areas identified by the state as unserved.

“No longer will we just be the electric provider to certain homes, but we will be the universal broadband provider” to areas covered by the awards, said Casey Logan, president and CEO of Prince George Electric Cooperative and its broadband subsidiary, RURALBAND.

“We were going into those counties to serve our electric co-op members. These grants allow us to serve an entire county, no matter who the electric provider is.”

RURALBAND, based in Waverly, will receive two grants totaling about $12.5 million to build fiber to nearly 4,000 unserved locations in two counties. They will partner with Windsor-based Community Electric Cooperative and Crewe-based Southside Electric Cooperative in unserved areas covered by the grants and use their poles to hang fiber.

“It’s definitely an example of co-ops helping other co-ops,” said Logan, who is also chairman of the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Broadband Cooperatives. The group served as liaison between state officials and co-op applicants during the competitive grant process.

Chase City-based Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative’s fiber broadband arm, Empower, won more than $69 million to serve about 11,500 locations in parts of four counties.

“We already have a pretty strong fiber presence in these counties,” said John Lee, president and CEO of Mecklenburg EC and Empower. “This grant gives us the ability to really close the deal.”

Empower partnered with Dominion Power in 2021 when the investor-owned utility offered middle-mile fiber in exchange for the co-op delivering retail broadband to its customers.

“It’s been an excellent partnership that will the benefit rural areas,” said Lee. “Broadband is just going to get more and more important. People who’ve said we don’t need it today are calling tomorrow.”

Central Virginia Electric Cooperative’s fiber broadband subsidiary, Firefly, headquartered in Arrington, will receive $79 million—the largest of these awards for a co-op—to connect more than 36,000 unserved locations across 13 counties.

And with about 7,000 meters, Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative, headquartered in New Castle, was the smallest co-op to earn a grant. It will use the nearly $1.6 million to deliver broadband to 495 unserved locations outside the city of Roanoke.

Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, who announced the awards Dec. 13, said the pandemic underscored the need for “swift and bold action to extend high-speed internet across Virginia.”

Derived from the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative and the federal American Rescue Plan Act, the grants will add to the more than $1 billion in investments statewide in 35 broadband projects to serve 278,000 households, businesses and community anchor institutions, according to the governor’s office.

To learn more about growing opportunities for co-op broadband, check out LiveWire, NRECA’s new video series.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson today issued the following statement on the confirmation of Jessica Rosenworcel to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC):

“The FCC has a critical role in the federal government’s efforts to expeditiously bring affordable and reliable broadband service to every rural American family and business. Jessica Rosenworcel has been a tireless advocate for bridging the digital divide and is exceptionally well qualified to lead the commission as it continues to address this urgent need.

“We look forward to strengthening our partnership with the FCC as we advance the interests of rural communities that still lack the fundamental services so vital to their wellbeing and quality of life.”

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

The head of the Federal Communications Commission said a visit to an electric cooperative in Georgia has helped crystalize the mission of rural broadband for her. 

“Traveling across Georgia, it is clear we need to get 100% of Americans online, no matter who they are or where they live,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel after participating in a Nov. 12 broadband roundtable with electric co-op leaders and Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., at Jackson Electric Membership Corp.

“Broadband access unlocks job and economic opportunities, keeps students connected to their schoolwork and offers new ways to keep in touch with our health care providers, and much more,” Rosenworcel said. “Hearing and learning directly from the skilled individuals building out our networks and the communities affected by a lack of infrastructure are lessons I will carry with me as we move forward with the FCC’s work to ensure everyone gets a fair shot at 21^st century success.”

Warnock described the struggle people in rural Georgia face without reliable high-speed internet access and expressed hope that solutions may be at hand.

“Broadband is a utility just like electricity or water, and in 2021, everyone needs reliable access to the internet for their jobs, their companies and to live their lives,” Warnock said. “I was so glad to be with FCC Chair Rosenworcel today to tour and visit with the leaders at Jackson EMC and discuss how local and federal partners can keep working together to advance our shared goal of connecting Georgians to all the economic and educational opportunities that broadband has to offer.”

Co-op leaders from Blue Ridge Mountain EMC, Carroll EMC, Habersham EMC, Sumter EMC, Washington EMC and the statewide association, Georgia EMC, joined the discussion as well.

They talked about how the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund process could be improved through expedited environmental reviews for applicants. They also discussed how pandemic-related supply chain delays are making it difficult to meet broadband deployment milestones for certain federal funding programs and why it is important to have accurate maps from the FCC to identify unserved areas.

“Broadband connectivity is a vital issue,” said Chip Jakins, president and CEO of Jackson EMC. “EMCs across the state are expanding broadband in their communities using several different approaches.”

Jackson EMC, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta and the state’s largest electric co-op, is exploring partnerships with broadband providers to bring high-speed internet service to unserved areas.

Wendy Sellers, CEO of Washington EMC, said electric co-ops are “making a real impact on the expansion of broadband in rural Georgia” and rural areas “desperately need” federal funds to build fiber networks to serve members.”

Dennis Chastain, president and CEO of Georgia EMC, said it was an honor to have Rosenworcel and Warnock meet with co-ops on the critical issue of rural broadband. “EMCs in Georgia are eager to play a part in helping solve our state’s digital divide and it’s exciting to see our national leaders recognize the great work being done all over our state,” he said.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Updated: Nov. 15, 4:45 pm

A bipartisan infrastructure bill approved Nov. 5 by the House will be a major boost for electric cooperatives by providing billions for broadband deployment, electric vehicle charging networks, electric transmission, energy storage, carbon capture and other clean energy technologies.

The Senate passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in August. The $1.2 trillion bill, which includes $550 billion in new spending, was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Nov. 15. Improving the nation’s aging infrastructure has been a major effort by Congress in recent years and a policy priority for the Biden administration.

“This bipartisan bill provides a significant down payment toward meeting critical needs of electric cooperatives and the communities we serve, including funding for priorities such as broadband deployment and electric vehicle charging,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “This bill recognizes the need to expand these two technologies in rural communities. As policymakers plan for a future that depends on electricity to drive the economy, more work will be needed to build on the groundwork laid by this legislation.”

Among the infrastructure bill’s key provisions benefiting co-ops:

• Broadband: Provides $65 billion to connect rural communities and low-income urban residents with high-speed internet service. This includes $42.5 billion for a broadband grant program administered by the states. Co-ops would be eligible to participate in the program, and funds could be used for deployment and mapping projects to show which communities need service most.

• Electric vehicles: Authorizes $7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure. The funding would be sent to the states to partner with co-ops and other businesses to create charging networks. The bill also provides $2.5 billion for zero-emission school buses, which could help co-ops partner with local school districts to bring electric buses to their communities.

• Energy research and development: Authorizes billions to explore clean energy technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

• Carbon capture: Provides $3.5 billion for large-scale carbon-capture projects, including two demonstration projects each at coal-fired power plants and natural gas-fired power plants. It also authorizes $2.2 billion to enable the capture of more carbon emissions by building storage infrastructure, including wells and pipelines.

• Wind and solar: Boosts renewable energy by providing $400 million for research and development into wind energy and $320 million for solar energy.

• Energy storage: Provides $355 million for pilot projects that explore the potential of energy storage. An additional $150 million would go toward an initiative that focuses on long-duration storage.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson today applauded U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack and the department’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) for making much-needed changes to the ReConnect broadband program for its third round of funding.

USDA will begin accepting ReConnect round three applications on November 24 for up to $1.15 billion in loans and grants to expand the availability of broadband in rural communities. More information can be found here from USDA.

“Efforts to bridge the digital divide began nearly 25 years ago, yet millions of Americans remain sidelined and disconnected simply because of their zip code,” said Matheson. “In 2021, that’s unacceptable. We greatly appreciate USDA’s work to help spur rural broadband deployment, and their appropriate recognition of the need to make sure the program continues to serve those communities most in need of broadband. Significant changes to this new round of the ReConnect program will allow electric cooperatives and other broadband providers to offer service to many more unserved and underserved rural communities.”

ReConnect provides loans and grants to fund the construction, improvement, or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in eligible rural areas.

During the third phase, RUS will make several noteworthy changes to the program advocated by NRECA, including:

• Modifying the definition of a served area from areas with speeds of 10/1 Mbps to 100/20 Mbps. Whether an area already has this higher level of service is a key factor in determining its eligibility for a grant. 
• Prioritizing applications from cooperatives, tribes, non-profits and local government entities that are not motived by profit.
• Requiring networks funded by the program to be capable of delivering symmetrical speeds of 100/100 Mbps.
• Allowing areas that previously received federal broadband funding to be eligible to participate in the auction if they lack 100/20 Mbps service.
• Prioritizing applications to areas that lack 25/3 Mbps.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

Casey Logan was in a quandary.

The electric cooperative in rural Virginia that he leads is delivering future-proof fiber broadband internet to a county that lacks access at any speed. But a large number of members, mainly older residents on fixed incomes, have been skeptical.

What could he do to help them see firsthand how broadband service at the fastest speed available might improve their lives?

After pondering the question and consulting other co-op CEOs, he and his team at Prince George Electric Cooperative and its broadband subsidiary RURALBAND thought back to the “co-op kitchens” of the 1950s, where members first saw modern electric appliances when they came in to pay their bills.

“The co-op would bring in refrigerators and stoves to really show members the benefits of electricity in their home, that the power that we supplied can do more than give you light,” said Logan, PGEC’s president and CEO.

With that concept in mind, the Waverly-based co-op recently opened a “broadband living room” at the Surry County Community Center.

Complete with sleek furnishings, a smart TV, laptops, tablets, an Xbox gaming system, a cordless phone and smart security cameras, the room gives visitors a chance to learn in a real-life setting how to use the internet for everything from shopping and distance learning to telemedicine and running an online business.

“The ‘living room’ is set up to really show them what the options are for their home once they get the broadband service,” said Logan. “We want to educate our members…that you can do so much more with internet than Facebook and Google searches.”

A separate office space allows members to experience teleworking while their kids play with smart devices.

PGEC partnered with the county for use of the space and has a RURALBAND staffer on site regularly to sit down with members and talk about the benefits of fiber broadband.

“We are giving them the best technology and the best service available anywhere,” said Logan. “In a lot of cases, our fixed-income member is saving money with broadband by switching their television service and landline. High-speed internet is icing on the cake.”

Gov. Ralph Northam attended an Aug. 27 ribbon-cutting for the living room and lauded the co-op’s leadership in making Surry County one of the first in the state to get universal broadband.

“I’m here on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia to say congratulations for a job well done,” the Democratic governor said.

RURALBAND fiber will be available to all of Surry County’s 8,000 residents by the end of October, with speeds up to one gigabit per second. By the end of 2022, it will reach all 12,000 members in the co-op’s six-county territory southeast of Richmond.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Arkansas electric cooperatives delivering broadband internet access to rural communities won praise from a member of the Federal Communications Commission who promised to bring their concerns back to Washington after a recent visit.

“There are too many Americans here in Arkansas and the four-state area that need service, and that’s where these cooperative broadband projects can continue to play a major role,” said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. The quad state area includes Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri.

Carr met with several co-op leaders Sept. 9 at OzarksGo, the broadband subsidiary of Fayetteville-based Ozarks Electric Cooperative, where they discussed the challenges of connecting remote areas with high-speed internet.

Among the concerns raised by the co-ops were the delays in receiving millions of dollars in grants from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund after qualifying as broadband providers. Other issues include supply chain crunches and difficulties in hiring and retaining a skilled broadband fiber workforce.

“Commissioner Carr said he is going back and taking our concerns with him,” said Steve Bandy, general manager of OzarksGo.

The first FCC commissioner ever to visit the co-op, Carr called electric co-ops’ broadband projects “an effective model to bring next-gen broadband access to underserved areas.”

“By bringing high-speed internet to areas that previously had only limited connectivity, they have transformed life for many Arkansans and paved the way for future development,” he said.

Carr toured the fiber operations of OzarksGo, which pioneered co-op-owned broadband in the state and connected its first customer in 2017. It now serves more than 27,000 customers in Northwest Arkansas and Northeast Oklahoma.

OzarksGo recently collaborated with 13 other Arkansas electric co-ops to establish a middle mile fiber network that will help them serve their most rural members more efficiently.

The Diamond State Networks LLC, with investments approaching $1.66 billion, is expected to cover more than 64% of the state’s land mass with more than 50,000 miles of fiber to provide broadband access to 1.25 million rural Arkansans, Bandy said.

The company was established last year when co-op leaders met to discuss ways to best serve their members with broadband.

“We knew nobody else out there was going to serve our members the way we would and help Arkansans like the co-ops could,” said Bandy. “In typical co-op spirit, we are deploying broadband much like we did electricity in the 1930s.”

In addition to Ozarks Electric Cooperative, the Arkansas co-ops forming the Diamond State Networks are:

• Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (Little Rock)
• Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative (Ozark)
• Ashley-Chicot Electric Cooperative (Hamburg)
• Clay County Electric Cooperative (Corning)
• Craighead Electric Cooperative (Jonesboro)
• Farmers Electric Cooperative (Newport)
• First Electric Cooperative (Jacksonville)
• Mississippi County Electric Cooperative (Blytheville)
• North Arkansas Electric Cooperative (Salem)
• Petit Jean Electric Cooperative (Clinton)
• South Central Arkansas Electric Cooperative (Arkadelphia)
• Southwest Arkansas Electric Cooperative (Texarkana)
• Woodruff Electric Cooperative (Forrest City)

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

A Field of Dreams real-life rematch between the White Sox and the Yankees in an Iowa cornfield ended in true Hollywood fashion when Chicago’s Tim Anderson hit a walk-off home run, akin to the feat by Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was mythologized in the 1989 movie.

But one of the hometown heroes for Major League Baseball’s most anticipated game of the season was the local electric cooperative that committed no errors in its delivery of broadband internet access for the Aug. 12 nationally televised event that drew some 6 million viewers.

Maquoketa Valley Electric Cooperative provided services to BaAM, the production company for the Field of Dreams game, that included building out fiber to the ballpark for network production, voice connections for operations and local first-responders and last-mile fiber to cell towers set up for communications in the stands.

“We put together our plan, implemented it, and it worked as expected,” said Jeff Geistkemper, fiber plant manager at the Anamosa-based co-op.

“Due to the size of the production and its rural location, this project posed several challenges,” he said. But when members of the production and broadcast teams arrived to broadcast the game, “all we did was plug in the optics, and it worked.”

For the first MLB game ever played in Iowa, production company BaAM built the 8,000-seat Field of Dreams stadium about 1,000 feet from the ballpark used in the iconic film starring Kevin Costner. The actor was on hand to lead the teams, donned in 1919 jerseys, out of a cornfield and onto the ballfield.

The co-op’s power lines skirt Dyersville, the closest town to the field, and its fiber connection was about a mile away. MVEC’s broadband unit, technical services and IT teams “worked diligently and innovatively to design and deploy a rock-solid fiber internet network capable of serving extremely high-volume usage,” Geistkemper said.

MVEC got the call from BaAM early last year when MLB wanted to set up an official game at the Field of Dreams. The company needed reliable service on gameday and were made aware of the co-op’s fiber network. MLB eventually canceled the 2020 game due to the COVID-19 pandemic but shifted plans to this summer, giving the co-op the go-ahead in early spring.

The historic game, framed with picture-perfect scenery, showcased Iowa, MLB and the co-op, said Jeremy Richert, MVEC CEO.

“It was a big milestone event for us,” he said. MVEC started offering retail broadband in 2016 after building a smart grid for co-op communications.

“It was a very steep learning curve, but here we are, able to provide service to an event that had attracted the attention of the entire country. It shows how far our staff and team have come in the last four and a half years.”

Geistkemper and a fiber technician were at the game to ensure everything worked and maintained consistent contact with the BaAM team leading up to and during the event. He also instructed contractors to stay close to the area and be ready at a moment’s notice if necessary.

“Luckily, we didn’t need anybody,” he said. “The most successful thing for me on gameday was no one knew we were at the park.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Dillingham, Alaska, is so remote that it’s only accessible by air or an occasional barge. Yet thanks to the efforts of Nushagak Cooperative and nearly $17 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this community of 2,300 is on target for world-class broadband internet access.

“It will be a game-changer,” said Trung Vo, telecom operations manager for the cooperative, which delivers both telephone and electric service.

Nushagak was among six electric co-ops to receive funding in the latest round of grants and loans from USDA’s ReConnect program.

“Federal funds like these ReConnect grants are a vital ingredient in order to successfully bring rural America into the 21st century,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said during a media call with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who announced the ReConnect awards Aug. 11.

Nushagak plans to use the grant to connect 944 households, nine schools, eight essential community facilities, three health care facilities and 223 businesses across 49 square miles. It will offer speeds at 300 megabits with unlimited data and will be able to grow to 1 gigabit.

“We are a little area considered to be in the middle of nowhere,” Vo said. “With the ReConnect grant, we will be able to deliver to these most remote residents the same speed internet available in urban areas in the lower 48.”

Gascosage Electric Cooperative, based in Dixon, Missouri, won a $700,000 grant to build fiber to 163 households and a farm. Past ReConnect funds helped the co-op launch its broadband service in the community of 1,100. It recently hooked up its first seven subscribers. Another 70 have signed up.

“Potential financial strain on our small distribution cooperative was very concerning and holding us back from providing this crucial service to our rural membership,” said General Manager Carmen Hartwell.

Middle Tennessee Electric will use a $1.76 million grant to run fiber to 711 unconnected households, 10 farms and four businesses.

“It will allow us to extend into some of the most rural, hard-to-reach areas of our service footprint,” said Brad Gibson, MTE’s chief cooperative business officer. “This accelerates our ability to get broadband there quicker despite the economic challenges.”

MTE, based in Murfreesboro, entered the broadband space when it acquired United Communications in 2018 after the state allowed electric co-ops to pursue retail internet.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Updated: August 11, 2021

A bipartisan infrastructure bill approved Tuesday by the Senate would provide billions of dollars for electric cooperative priorities, including broadband deployment, electric vehicle charging networks and development of energy storage, carbon capture and other clean energy technologies.

The bill must still be taken up by the House, which is scheduled to return early from recess on Aug. 23.

“Investing in our energy infrastructure is vital to ensuring that electric cooperatives can continue to do what they do best: provide reliable, affordable power to 42 million Americans,” said Louis Finkel, NRECA’s senior vice president of Government Relations. “Passage of this bill is a great start. We’ll continue to work with Congress to press for more co-op priorities to be included in the bigger infrastructure packages that lawmakers are expected to take up later this year.”

The $550 billion bill does not include the Flexible Financing for Rural America Act, which would allow co-ops to save a total of more than $10 billion by repricing their existing Rural Utilities Service debt at current low interest rates without prepayment penalties. It also does not include legislation to provide co-ops with direct federal payments to develop renewable energy and battery storage projects.

Inclusion of those proposals was hampered by the absence of tax or agriculture sections. NRECA will continue to push for those two top priorities to be included in separate infrastructure legislation expected to be considered later this year.

Among the Senate-passed bill’s key provisions benefiting co-ops:

• Broadband: Provides $65 billion to connect rural communities and low-income urban residents with high-speed internet service. This includes $42.5 billion for a broadband grant program administered by the states. Co-ops would be eligible to participate in the program, and funds could be used for deployment and mapping projects to show which communities need service most.

• Electric vehicles: Authorizes $7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure. The money goes to the states to partner with co-ops and other businesses to create charging networks. The bill also provides $2.5 billion for zero-emission school buses. Some co-ops have partnered with local school districts to help bring electric school buses to their communities, and this money could assist those efforts.

• Energy research and development: Authorizes billions to explore clean energy technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

• Carbon capture: Provides $3.5 billion for large-scale carbon-capture projects, including two demonstration projects each at coal-fired power plants and natural gas-fired power plants. It also authorizes $2.2 billion to enable the capture of more carbon emissions by building storage infrastructure, including wells and pipelines.

• Wind and solar: Boosts renewable energy by providing $400 million for research and development into wind energy and $320 million for solar energy.

• Energy storage: Provides $355 million for pilot projects that explore the potential of energy storage. An additional $150 million would go toward an initiative that focuses on long-duration storage.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) today praised senators for passing a bipartisan infrastructure deal that helps electric cooperatives address several critical issues, while noting that additional assistance is needed to support rural communities.

“This bipartisan proposal is a meaningful first step and carries significant benefits for rural families and businesses, particularly those who lack access to high speed broadband,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said. “We commend the senators from both sides of the aisle who worked together on this compromise, and we applaud their commitment to the bipartisan pursuit of solutions.

“As policymakers plan for a future that depends on electricity as the primary energy source for much of the economy, more work will be needed to build on this infrastructure down payment. Electric co-ops will continue pushing for the financial flexibility to refinance existing government loans at today’s low interest rates and eligibility for direct pay tax credits to boost electric co-op investments in renewables and other innovative energy technologies. These two co-op priorities would provide much-needed tools for co-ops to leverage as they navigate the ongoing energy transition.”

The legislation addresses several electric co-op priorities, including:

• Clean Energy: Support for clean energy technologies, including carbon capture utilization and storage, nuclear energy and hydropower.
• Broadband: Substantial funding to boost broadband deployment, including $42.5 billion for a state-based grant program.
• Grid Modernization: Funding for grid modernization, including $3 billion for a Smart Grid Investment Matching Grant Program.
• Physical and Cybersecurity: Provisions to increase physical and cybersecurity through public-private partnerships and other programs.
• Grid Resiliency: Programs to promote grid resiliency, including$5 billion for resiliency grants to supplement existing grid hardening efforts, reduce the risk of power lines causing a wildfire and reduce the likelihood and consequences of resilience events.
• Electric Vehicles: Language to advance EV adoption, including $7 billion for EV charging infrastructure.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

NRECA has joined more than 170 other groups in urging Congress to provide full funding for broadband to meet the growing demand for high-speed internet service for decades to come.

“The United States met the challenge of electrifying America in the last century with an audacious plan we take for granted today,” NRECA and the other advocates wrote in a letter to congressional leaders. “A similarly bold approach is needed to build universally available broadband infrastructure fully capable of supporting all communications technology needs and meet ever-rising demand for bandwidth.”

Congress is expected to take up a sweeping infrastructure bill this year that will include the expansion of broadband to rural communities and underserved urban areas.

NRECA is sending a clear message to lawmakers on the need for rural broadband funding as they consider what to include in any infrastructure package, said Kelly Wismer, NRECA’s lobbyist for broadband and telecommunications issues.

“While the telecommunications industry and stakeholders broadly agree that broadband access and affordability are critically important, there isn’t always agreement on how to make that a reality,” Wismer said. “In fact, some segments of the industry (large telephone, fixed wireless, and satellite) advocate for any new broadband infrastructure programs to fund networks at much lower speeds than cooperatives and others are striving to build.”

“Cooperatives want their consumer-members to have access to broadband that will be reliable, affordable and meet their bandwidth needs both now and for years to come,” she said. “To that end, we advocate that federal programs support the building of networks that will stand the test of time instead of networks that may be outdated by the time they’re built.”

Broadband service must deliver data at much faster speeds than the standard 25/3 megabits per second set by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015, the letter says.

“Any new federal program must fund broadband infrastructure capable of enabling businesses to meet the needs of consumers, empower businesses to relocate to any community, provide opportunities for teleworkers and students at the same level regardless of geography, enable anchor institutions to fully provide for their entire communities, and make possible precision agriculture capabilities for agriculture producers to improve efficiencies,” the groups wrote.

An estimated 35% of rural Americans do not have access to broadband from any provider, the letter notes.

“It is time to act to end the digital divide forever by passing a national broadband infrastructure program that will deliver universal, affordable, 21st century-ready access,” the letter said.

The June 28 letter was sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. It was signed by a broad cross-section of public and private groups, including library associations, school districts, health care networks, colleges and agricultural organizations.

“Today,” they wrote, “Congress can demonstrate the vision that its predecessors showed decades ago by connecting every American with the 21st Century equivalent of electricity—broadband.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo got an up-close view of the “Mississippi miracle” when she visited an electric cooperative leading the charge for delivering the fastest broadband to the state’s most rural communities.

“Mississippi is one of the poorest states for a broadband buildout—especially its rural areas—but in three to four years it will be an entire gigabit state, really because of cooperatives,” said Ron Barnes, president and CEO of Coast Electric Power Association based in Kiln. “It really is akin to a miracle.”

Raimondo traveled to the Mississippi Gulf Coast on June 25 as the guest of Roger Wicker, the state’s senior senator and the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. She made a special request to see rural broadband development, and Coast Electric was ready to show her around.

Barnes and several co-op staff welcomed Raimondo and Wicker to the Picayune office, the current hub of broadband activity. CoastConnect launched in June 2020 and hooked up its first customer in November.

Since the Mississippi Broadband Enabling Act of 2019, 18 of the state’s 25 electric distribution co-ops have committed to serve the unserved with symmetrical gigabit internet access. About $1 billion in COVID-19 relief funds to the state are helping these fiber networks get built.

Coast Electric has laid 1,000 miles of fiber and connected about 1,700 consumers. The six-phase, $150 million project will eventually serve 30,000 homes and businesses with 4,500 miles of fiber.

“Initially, we wanted to build out in six years. Now we’re on pace to build out in four years,” Barnes said. “Where we started and where we are in less than a year is part of the ‘Mississippi miracle.’ We are doing it so quickly and in the throes of a pandemic.”

Consumer-member Ashley Shuck told the secretary and the senator how the co-op’s reliable and affordable broadband has allowed her to return to her ancestral farm and raise her children while she works remotely.

“Her story resonated and, I think, the secretary could really understand the value of what we’re doing,” said Barnes.

He then guided Raimondo and Wicker on a short walk to a construction trailer where planning for the broadband project takes place. The walls are covered in maps of planned service areas, locations for equipment and other data.

Federal dollars from the CARES Act and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund helped spur deployment, and the co-op also has received loans from CoBank.

Barnes hopes Raimondo relays to President Joe Biden how co-ops are delivering broadband to unserved areas like they did with electricity 80 years ago and the importance of more funding to reach remote communities.

“What makes an electric co-op special is we really, truly do care about serving our community,” he said. “We felt so honored and blessed to be able to tell our story of great success. We are getting the job done, but we still need financial support.”

Coast Electric is one of nearly 200 electric co-ops across 39 states involved in retail broadband solutions to help close the digital divide.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

Interim guidance by the U.S. Treasury on how $350 billion in COVID-19 relief funds may be used for rural broadband recognizes the role electric cooperatives can play and the importance of affordable, future-proof internet access.

“Although it is early in the process, we are pleased by how the temporary guidelines from Treasury may help deploy broadband to unserved rural communities,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA senior regulatory director.

“We look forward to ensuring co-ops and the communities they serve get a fair opportunity to benefit from these relief funds as the department prepares to finalize its guidance in the weeks ahead.”

The Treasury Department released the interim guidance May 10 to facilitate disbursement of $219 billion in state and $130 billion in local government recovery funds from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act.

Under the proposed guidance, funds may cover broadband deployment costs incurred from March 3 of this year through 2024. Eligible projects would serve areas without reliable wireline connections of at least 25/3 megabits per second download/upload. Treasury officials included electric co-ops among those that should have priority to receive funds.

NRECA has summarized the Treasury guidance and outlined several key components, including:

• Eligible projects should deliver at upload/download speeds of at least 100/100 Mbps.
• Fiber optic infrastructure should be prioritized where feasible.
• Last-mile broadband connections to homes and businesses are encouraged.
• Internet providers receiving funds are encouraged to make the service affordable.
• Assistance to hard-hit households in need of internet access or digital literacy is an eligible use of funds.

In April, NRECA CEO Jim Matheson urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to issue guidelines that support broadband for rural America and to reject recommendations from large telecom providers that would disadvantage remote, economically challenged regions.

“Any restriction, no matter how well intended, has the potential to create winners and losers and is likely to result in rural communities being further left behind in the digital economy,” he wrote.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer for NRECA.

As the Biden administration proposes a $100 billion investment in rural broadband, Vice President Kamala Harris praised the work of electric cooperatives in delivering affordable broadband internet access, comparing it to the initial co-op electrification efforts in the 1930s.

“It’s the same thing that our country decided to do in 1936, saying, ‘Let’s get electricity to everybody,’ and rural America should not be left out of that priority,” Harris said during an April 23 visit to New Hampshire Electric Cooperative.

“And part of the American Jobs Plan is not only $100 billion getting broadband to everyone, but with an emphasis on co-ops, with an emphasis on the nonprofits, with the emphasis on the ones that are being led by the community.

“And so that’s why we’re here today: to see it and to understand that this really is an incredible moment in our history. Not unlike what our country did in the 1930s with electricity we can do now with broadband. So, let’s get it done.”

Harris was welcomed to the Plymouth-based co-op by Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., her former colleague in the U.S. Senate, along with NHEC President and CEO Steve Camerino and co-op board members and staff.

As the COVID-19 pandemic stressed the crucial importance of broadband, NHEC last year secured two grants from the state’s broadband expansion program that received CARES Act funds. Within three months, the co-op used the aid to build 100 miles of fiber networks in four towns and provide nearly 1,000 previously unserved members with access to high-speed internet.

“That’s phenomenal,” Harris said of the 100-miles-in-100-days feat. “What you’re doing here on the ground, literally, you need the support, you deserve the support from our federal government.”

Camerino attributed the co-op’s efficiency to its member focus and said its not-for-profit status keeps broadband affordable. The co-op wants to deliver broadband to all 118 towns it serves.

“Having broadband throughout our service territory actually will help us further our strategic plan as an electric cooperative because it will help with grid modernization and support widespread adoption of distributed energy resources, which is part of our vision for the future,” he told the vice president.

“But we really can’t do that alone. Just like back in the ’30s, we need some federal support so that we can be sure that we can get this off the ground and not have electric consumers bearing the financial risk.”

Jeff Bird, NHEC line design technician, described building the co-op’s fiber backbone infrastructure and walking rural pole routes, where he met members who were “extremely happy with the fact that we were going to be having high-speed broadband.”

The vice president got a firsthand look at equipment for building a fiber network and thanked the co-op for its leadership.

“I’m so glad that you all are doing this work and that we could bring attention to it as a model for our country of what can be done and what’s possible and the talent that we have on the ground to get it done,” Harris said.

Read more:
How the Biden Administration Can Close the Digital Divide

As billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds are set to flow to states and localities, NRECA wants to clear the way for support to vital projects in rural America, like broadband.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, signed by President Joe Biden on March 11, provides $219 billion for states and $130 billion for local governments in fiscal recovery funds that can be used for broadband and another $10 billion for new capital projects. The Treasury Department is writing rules to govern the first half of these funds, expected to be released around May 11.

NRECA is asking the department to reject efforts by some large telecommunications companies to shape the rules in ways that disadvantage regions without adequate broadband access.

“We understand that large cable providers and telcos—some of which have received billions in federal aid yet bypassed rural communities for years—are urging guidelines that prohibit these stimulus funds from going to rural areas that may receive other federal or state broadband help,” said Brian O’Hara, senior regulatory director at NRECA.

“Treasury might also be encouraged to rely on faulty maps from the Federal Communications Commission on what rural areas are already connected to high-speed internet,” he said.

To clarify these concerns and the crucial role electric co-ops play, NRECA CEO Jim Matheson is urging Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to set guidelines that in no way limit the ability of states and localities to address their specific needs.

“Millions of rural Americans without access to broadband are fighting an uphill battle in the digital economy,” Matheson wrote the secretary. “That is why nearly 200 electric cooperatives are involved in diverse solutions to provide retail broadband and help close the digital divide.”

The department, in any formulating guidelines on broadband funds, should be aware that the FCC’s current data on rural broadband availability has been proven to be inaccurate, NRECA said. The FCC has acknowledged that it may take a couple of years to collect the data necessary to accurately identify unserved areas.

With that in mind, Matheson wrote, “Any restriction, no matter how well intended, has the potential to create winners and losers and is likely to result in rural communities being further left behind in the digital economy.”

Matheson also underscored that in passing the relief bill, “Congress intentionally provided broad latitude on how best to use these funds.”

“Restrictive guidance from the [Treasury] Department is contrary to the statutory language and would hamper the ability of state and local policymakers—who are much more knowledgeable about the level of broadband service available within their jurisdictions—to address unique local barriers to broadband deployment,”  he wrote.

NRECA is encouraging electric co-ops to reach out to their local and state governments’ broadband or economic development offices regarding the allocation of these funds.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Archie Carroll is old enough to recall how Choptank Electric Cooperative changed his life as one of the first families to get electricity in 1939.

Now, Choptank is doing the same for his daughter, who was picked to be the co-op’s first broadband connection.

At an April 15 ceremony, Choptank Fiber, the co-op’s wholly owned broadband subsidiary, completed its inaugural high-speed internet service at the Denton, Maryland, home of Sherry and Gordon Hollingsworth.

“Broadband is the new electricity,” said Sherry, whose father’s and mother’s family farms were both among the first to get power from Choptank in 1939.

“Back then, electricity did so much for the farmers. In today’s world, so much relies on the internet. It’s just huge not to have it—not having it makes life a lot more difficult.”

Her dad knows difficult. As a child, Carroll said he often woke up to a water glass frozen over and the sight of his mother wiping soot from the many oil lamps that lit their home. At night, he and his siblings would pile on the blankets to stay warm.

One day, walking home from the school bus stop, he saw workers driving in stakes to mark where poles would be raised near the family dairy farm. 

“This one guy said to me, ‘If you want electricity, don’t bother with the stakes. If you see anybody messing with them, tell them leave them alone,’” said Carroll, who was 8 then and turns 90 in August. “It wasn’t too long after that that we had electricity.”

Within a year, Carroll said his father bought electric milking machines that boosted production. In 1947, his dad built an electrified milking parlor with greater automation and safety. 

“There were many factors that were made so much better with electricity,” said Carroll, a lifelong Choptank member. “It’s strange to me that my daughter does not have internet since they’re just off a main thoroughfare.”

Choptank got top-drawer recognition at the ribbon-cutting, with Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan presenting a citation marking the co-op’s commitment to expanding broadband access on the state’s Eastern Shore.

“Our real goal is to change the quality of life for rural members,” said Mike Malandro, Choptank president and CEO.

The Hollingworths, like many rural residents, struggled for years to get reliable high-speed internet to carry on their day-to-day activities. That included running a trucking business at their home property, for which they had to purchase an expensive T1 line for voice and data.

“Comcast would always say if we got 20 houses to sign up, they would provide service,” said Sherry. “It’s been 15 years. The neighborhood has tried to convince them to do it, but they never ever did.”

She said Choptank Fiber will allow them to do their business, banking, doctor appointments, shopping and, most importantly, family visits online. Her father lives in a retirement community with high-speed connectivity. One son is moving to San Francisco. Another lives outside Baltimore. Plus, regular check-ins with the grandchildren, who they hope may extend their visits if there’s broadband for school.

“Communicating with the grandchildren—that’s the bright side of the story,” said Gordon. “We’ve been waiting patiently.”

Adds Sherry, “If we didn’t have the pandemic, we’d probably have a party.”

Watch the full ribbon-cutting of Choptank Electric’s first broadband connection:

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Electric cooperatives “need continued public funding immediately” to bring broadband to rural communities left behind by commercial internet providers, Otsego Electric Cooperative CEO Tim Johnson told the House Agriculture Committee on Tuesday.

Johnson said his small Hartwick, New York-based co-op would never have been able to offer high-speed internet service to its 4,900 consumer-members in a high-poverty part of the state without government funding support.

“This is true for most electric cooperatives,” Johnson said in testimony before the committee.

Because many co-ops operate in sparsely populated regions, the cost of construction “would not be recoverable within commercial lending requirements.”

“The costs of operations are also much more difficult to cover due to the lack of density and therefore lower revenues,” he said.

Yet co-ops also have a big advantage in expanding broadband service in rural areas, Johnson said.

“We are located in these areas, so we are familiar with the terrain and existing infrastructure, and we are stable organizations that have served these communities for over 75 years,” he told lawmakers at a committee hearing to examine broadband needs and opportunities in rural America.

“Cooperatives have skilled manpower, equipment and vehicles and we own the poles and rights of way so we can control some of our make-ready costs—the process of ensuring poles are ready and in proper condition to have fiber hung on them—through planning and proactive maintenance schedules.”

More than 200 electric co-ops in 37 states are deploying broadband and about 100 more are considering it, Johnson said.

“This cooperative commitment is vital for the one-quarter of all rural Americans who still lack access to broadband, compared to less than 2% in urban areas,” he said.

OEC began offering high-speed, affordable broadband service to its members in 2017. The co-op now has service available for all its members “with state-of-the-art fiber to the home service,” Johnson said.

“It has provided blessings in many ways during the COVID-19 crisis,” he testified. “We immediately prioritized new service connections to doctors, nurses, other health care professionals and support personnel, teleworkers and students when our state was shut down.”

OEC recently was awarded more than $7 million from the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Development Opportunity Fund auction to extend broadband service to residents outside the co-op’s territory.

Providing flexible federal funding to electric co-ops to expand broadband is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars, Johnson said. Construction costs within OEC’s system were more than 50% lower than the costs of building outside of its electric footprint on other electric utility systems, he said.

Without broadband, rural communities won’t be able to attract economic development and will be left behind in the digital age, Johnson said.

“Broadband is vital to the survival and growth of both the communities OEC serves and all of rural America,” Johnson said.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

More than 1,500 electric cooperative leaders from across the country will host online meetings with over 350 members of Congress this week as part of NRECA’s annual Legislative Conference, CEO Jim Matheson told reporters Monday.

Co-op CEOs and directors are essential in helping lawmakers understand how key energy issues affect local constituents, Matheson said during a virtual news conference.

“That connection back home is really significant for us in terms of our identity with elected officials,” he said.

Co-ops will be advocating for three major issues during the virtual conference:

• Repricing Rural Utilities Service loans so that co-ops can benefit from today’s low interest rates without being hit with prepayment penalties.
• Investing in broadband to help close the digital divide that has left many rural areas behind.
• Providing comparable incentives to tax-exempt co-ops for energy innovation.

On the RUS debt issue, co-ops are urging Congress to pass the bipartisan Flexible Financing for Rural America Act, which could save co-ops more than $10 billion in interest payments on their loans. Matheson said NRECA is pushing lawmakers to include the legislation in the infrastructure package that they are expected to take up later this year.

“I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t support this idea, although we all know it’s hard to get anything through Congress these days,” he said.

Matheson called broadband “an essential aspect of life” that is still being denied to more than 23 million people in rural America. More than 200 co-ops provide high-speed internet service to their consumer-members, and co-op leaders are calling on Congress to support broadband financing that gives priority to projects in areas with the lowest population density.

Tax-exempt co-ops that want to invest in innovative energy technologies also are looking for direct federal incentive payments comparable to the tax incentives paid to for-profit utilities, Matheson said. Because they don’t pay federal taxes, co-ops and municipal utilities—which together make up 30% of the electric utility industry—aren’t able to take advantage of incentives for renewable energy, carbon capture, battery storage and other technologies.

“We just want parity,” Matheson said. “The direct-pay method seems to be where consensus is growing on Capitol Hill.”

In answers to reporters’ questions about President Joe Biden’s climate change policies, Matheson said he doesn’t think it’s realistic to eliminate all carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector by 2035.

“Zero carbon by 2035—we think that’s an overly ambitious goal,” he said. “We’re having trouble seeing how we get there. Where’s the technology today that can allow that to happen, to get all the way to zero?”

Co-ops are concerned about how climate policies will affect their primary goal of providing reliable, affordable power to their members, many of whom live in high-poverty areas, Matheson said.

“What are going to be the commercially viable, always available and affordable carbon-free technologies to provide electricity?” Matheson asked. “People can set goal X, Y or Z, but are the lights going to go on whenever consumers flip the switch? And will they be able to afford it? Those are the questions we’re asking.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – More than 1,500 electric cooperative CEOs and other co-op representatives will take co-op priorities to Capitol Hill April 19-23 for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s (NRECA) Legislative Conference and congressional visits. The conference and meetings with lawmakers will be conducted virtually.

“Because they are built by and belong to the communities they serve, electric cooperatives have a unique perspective on local needs and are strong advocates for the rural families and businesses they serve,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, NRECA and our members have kept open lines of communication with elected officials to advance our shared priorities and secure critical assistance for co-op consumer-members. We look forward to continuing these conversations next week as thousands of co-op advocates conduct virtual conversations with lawmakers.”

Three electric cooperative priority issues

Co-op leaders will highlight three priorities during the congressional visits:

• Refinancing Rural Utilities Service (RUS) loans: Co-ops are pressing for passage of The Flexible Financing for Rural America Act (H.R. 2244, S. 978). The bill would provide critical economic relief by allowing electric cooperatives to refinance USDA Rural Utilities Service loans at lower interest rates without penalty—just as other businesses do. This change would save co-ops and their consumer-members as much as $10 billion.
  
  
• Rural broadband: More than 200 co-ops provide broadband service to their consumer-members, but an expanded combination of federal grant and loan funding is essential to close the digital divide. Co-ops are calling on Congress to: support sustained broadband financing that prioritizes projects in areas with the lowest population densities, and provide greater oversight of the Federal Communications Commission to ensure winning Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I bidders have the financial, technical and operational ability to provide quality broadband service. The FCC estimates that 34 million Americans still lack access to high-speed internet, the vast majority of whom live in rural communities served by electric co-ops.
  
  
• Comparable tax credits for energy innovation: As not-for-profit businesses, electric co-ops cannot access certain clean energy innovation tax incentives that are available to other businesses. Congress should address this by providing comparable access to federal investment and production tax incentives and additional financing options, such as a clean and renewable energy bond program, to support co-op projects that promote clean, affordable, and reliable electricity.

Sen. Grassley wins Distinguished Service Award

Prior to NRECA’s Legislative Conference, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was presented with NRECA’s Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes a lawmaker’s outstanding contribution to the progress of electric cooperatives and the public power program in the United States.

Video: Sen. Grassley receives NRECA’s 2021 Distinguished Service Award

Grassley was recognized for his unwavering support for America’s electric cooperatives throughout his six decades of public service, including his hometown co-op, Butler County REC. He played a leading role in advancing key electric co-op policy priorities, including enactment in 2019 of the RURAL Act, which saved co-ops from losing their tax-exempt status if they received government grants surpassing 15% of their non-member income. This legislation saved electric co-ops millions of dollars in federal taxes that now go directly toward serving co-op consumer-members.

Grassley also championed legislation to repeal the “Cadillac Tax” imposed on health care benefits that cooperatives provide for their employees. NRECA estimated that its member cooperatives would save more than $30 million a year in pension insurance premiums because of this legislation.

“Butler County REC is proud to be Sen. Grassley’s hometown cooperative,” said Craig Codner, the co-op’s CEO. “We appreciate his advocacy for cooperatives. From his support of legislation to his morning run with Iowa Youth Tour participants, his dedication is evident. We congratulate Sen. Grassley on his much-deserved Distinguished Service Award.”

“We are honored that NRECA has recognized Sen. Grassley with this important award,” said Chuck Soderberg, executive vice president, Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives. “Throughout his decades of public service, Sen. Grassley has gone above and beyond to fight for co-ops, their employees, their communities, and the cooperative business model. We are incredibly grateful to have Sen. Grassley serving the state of Iowa and especially grateful that we can call him a true friend of America’s electric cooperatives.”

“Sen. Grassley is an exemplary friend to electric co-ops and understands well the important role they play across the nation,” said Matheson. “He has helped pave the way for co-op priorities on Capitol Hill, always with the goal of improving the quality of life in rural communities. I commend Sen. Grassley for his unwavering focus on the needs of his constituents and his commitment to ensuring the continued availability of affordable and reliable power.”

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

The Biden administration’s $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan includes a proposed $100 billion to connect every American to broadband internet. But, as Congress considers Biden’s proposal, what would it really take to close the digital divide?

“The Biden plan calls out the rural electric cooperative model as a means to deliver future-proof broadband and serve as a community-based provider,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA senior regulatory director. “We appreciate that but note there are a few steps in addition to funding that are necessary to provide broadband to all.”

These range from accurately identifying which parts of the country lack broadband to training a workforce to build out fiber connections to these remote areas, he said.

Kelly Wismer, NRECA legislative affairs director, added that resources are needed to ensure that those who would benefit most from telemedicine, distance learning and e-commerce can afford service and are comfortable navigating the internet.

“Broadband affordability and adoption remain key components to getting the unserved served,” she said.

With that, here are specific steps co-ops believe must be followed by the Biden administration to close the digital divide:

1. Create and maintain accurate and detailed broadband access maps to highlight service gaps and target funding.

2. Offer long-term investments to not only build but sustain broadband infrastructure in rural and difficult-to-serve areas.

3. Select broadband providers for funding that best understand and can meet the needs of an entire community.

4. Require federally funded broadband projects to meet fast-growing speed and bandwidth demands with proven and tested technologies.

5. Demand program accountability to ensure funding recipients deliver the level of service promised.

6. Support workforce training to build and maintain broadband networks.

7. Create programs that address affordability and digital literacy for consumers.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., says he knows that the big internet providers don’t always deliver when it comes to broadband access in rural America, but financial help from Congress is on the way.

Warner brought that message to BARC Electric’s broadband subsidiary in the Shenandoah Valley on April 7. The former Virginia governor discussed his plan for assistance to get rural networks built.

“In many communities, the deck is stacked in favor of the incumbents, and we have not put in place, I think, the kind of programs and resources we need to incite really expanded high-speed coverage,” Warner told a roomful of co-op and local officials from the areas where BARC Connects delivers broadband.

“I commend the co-op for taking this on, and I would love to see other co-ops be as bold as you guys have been,” said Warner, who co-founded former cellular giant Nextel Communications before it merged with Sprint. “This is an area where many of the big incumbent providers, the Comcasts, the Verizons, the AT&Ts, have quite honestly not done the job they should have.”

The senator said he believes that dynamic will change with new financial resources for rural broadband in the latest federal COVID-19 relief bill signed by President Joe Biden on March 11. It allows $350 billion in recovery funds—$219 billion in state and $130 billion in local—to be applied to broadband deployment and creates a $10 billion capital projects fund for states, territories and tribal governments that includes projects enabling remote work, education and health monitoring.

The new law also sets up a $7.2 billion emergency connectivity fund at the Federal Communications Commission to close the “homework gap” by paying for internet service, hotspots and equipment at eligible schools and libraries.

“There’s no reason why the kids in Bath County [part of BARC’s territory] shouldn’t have every bit the high-speed internet connectivity as the kids in Alexandria” just outside Washington, D.C., Warner said. “This needs to be an economic justice issue.”

Local officials, school representatives and business owners, socially distanced in the co-op’s large solar learning center, talked with Warner for an hour about the challenges of getting affordable high-speed internet service throughout the region. The senator encouraged them to contact his office when encountering barriers to rapidly expand broadband connectivity to unserved areas.

“To have him take an interest in BARC and everything that we’re doing and see the progress that we’re making, it’s a tremendous honor,” said CEO Mike Keyser.  “It is clear that Senator Warner shares our passion for this issue. To have his support in overcoming the financial and operational challenges associated with rural broadband deployment means everything.”

On April 8 at a community college in Charlottesville, the senator met with officials from Central Virginia Electric Cooperative about rural broadband deployment. CVEC CEO Gary Wood discussed how the Colleen-based co-op’s Firefly Fiber Broadband^SM is partnering with Rappahannock Electric Cooperative and investor-owned Dominion Energy to serve households and businesses.

“Firefly is committed to offering world-class, gigabit-speed fiber broadband service to the most rural addresses,” Wood said.  “We are excited to leverage Firefly’s internet service and this partnership to bring about change that is long overdue.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Rural communities awaiting broadband from the Federal Communications Commission’s largest funding auction could end up losing out. Big time.

That’s because the FCC may take a year to confirm the winners of its $9.2 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund without announcing defaults by would-be internet service providers along the way.

Without timely public notice of defaults, census block groups no longer covered by the RDOF may be ineligible for tens of billions of dollars from other federal, state and local programs designated for rural broadband.

NRECA is urging the commission not to let this happen.

The FCC should announce RDOF defaults as soon as possible so unserved rural areas will be eligible for other public broadband resources. NRECA made that request April 1 to the FCC with the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association and Ensuring RDOF Integrity Coalition.

“If the FCC gives timely public notice on defaults and identifies unserved areas that will not get RDOF money, other providers can come in and deliver broadband with help from federal stimulus funds and other programs,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA’s senior regulatory director.

“But for now, these rural communities are stuck.”

Several new and existing broadband funding programs will open soon, including the Rural Utilities Service’s ReConnect program and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s programs for broadband infrastructure, tribal broadband connectivity and connecting minority communities. 

Since RDOF winners were announced last December, there have already been some defaults by those that have failed or declined to meet the deadline to file detailed broadband plans. Some preliminary winners also have informed the FCC that they can no longer serve the census blocks in their bids. As the FCC reviews the bids, NRECA anticipates that some questionable bids may be disqualified.

Many electric cooperatives that bid into the RDOF lost out to other bidders on certain census blocks or won areas that are nonadjacent, which could raise the cost to serve the areas they did win.

“If such a co-op learns in a timely fashion that the winner of those other census blocks has defaulted, that co-op may seek other funding to serve those blocks,” O’Hara said.

The bottom line is to ensure that rural areas are not stranded without broadband access for schools, businesses, telemedicine and other essentials, he said. “It’s about these communities getting served with the right broadband that meets their needs,” O’Hara said. “Not just for today, but their needs going forward.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today issued the following statement on the inclusion of electric cooperative policy priorities in the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposal.

“We’re encouraged to see electric co-op priorities reflected in President Biden’s infrastructure proposal,” Matheson said. “As we plan for a future that depends on electricity as the primary energy source for a majority of the economy, strategic investments in grid modernization and energy innovation are critical. Equally important is support for expanded rural broadband and other efforts to help rural families and businesses.

“As Congress reflects on this proposal and begins drafting legislation, we look forward to staying engaged to ensure that the priorities of rural America and electric co-ops remain front of mind.”

Some of the provisions that will benefit electric co-ops and their consumer-members include:

Energy

• $100 billion to update the nation’s energy grid and expand existing transmission infrastructure.
• Allowing electric co-ops to access direct-pay tax credits for energy innovation, generation, and storage programs.
• $15 billion for energy demonstration projects, including utility-scale battery storage, carbon capture and storage, and advanced nuclear energy.
• Programs to make electricity infrastructure more resilient, including in our most vulnerable communities.

Electric Vehicle Network

• $174 billion investment “to win the EV market,” including grants and incentive programs to build a national network of EV chargers by 2030.  Also sets a goal to electrify at least 20% of school bus fleet.

Broadband

• $100 billion investment in broadband, with a focus on rural areas and tribal lands. It prioritizes support for broadband networks owned, operated or affiliated with non-profits and cooperatives—“providers with less pressure to turn profits and with a commitment to serving entire communities.” It also calls for lifting barriers that prevent rural electric co-ops from competing on a level playing field with private providers.

Support for Rural Communities

• $5 billion for a new Rural Partnership Program to help rural communities expand economic development.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing nearly 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

Innovation by electric cooperatives is getting noticed in a huge way. 

Fast Company, the media firm that ranks advancements across all sectors worldwide, named BARC Electric Cooperative as the seventh most innovative company in North America in 2021.

Serving nearly 13,000 members in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley region, Millboro-based BARC is the first electric co-op bestowed the honor.

BARC was recognized for “making renewable energy accessible and bringing broadband to rural areas.”

“It’s a tremendous honor,” said Mike Keyser, CEO of the co-op and its broadband arm, BARC Connects. “For a co-op in a rural part of Virginia to be recognized nationally at this level is unbelievable really.

“We weren’t even sure Fast Company knew what a co-op is. This recognition not only highlights BARC and what we’re doing, it highlights what co-ops are doing all across the country.”

Tucked along Virginia’s coal country, BARC is the first utility in the state to launch a sustainability plan with a voluntary goal of 100% carbon-neutral energy sales by 2035. It calls for greater investments in solar energy and renewable purchases.

“We are seeing where the industry is heading, what is coming down the pike,” said Keyser. “If it is going to be forced upon us, we’d like to be ahead of that and set our own destiny. This is the right thing to do for our members.”

BARC offers rooftop solar and community solar subscriptions and is building two new utility-scale solar farms this year. The co-op is currently in the development phase of a program that makes the benefits of solar accessible to low- and middle-income members. All of these programs fall under its SolarizeBARC brand, which installed 253 kilowatts of new rooftop solar in 2020, its first year.

An early broadband developer, BARC now has over 2,500 residential and commercial broadband subscribers in previously unserved communities dotting the Shenandoah Valley and Appalachian Mountains. This year, the co-op will add 500 miles of fiber to its communications network for high-speed internet access, making service available to over 12,000 residential and commercial customers by the end of the year.

BARC is also working on developing an EV-charging rate to encourage electric vehicle ownership and has partnered with its G&T, Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, on a 5-megawatt/10 megawatt-hour battery storage project sited near BARC’s largest commercial customer.

“Innovation is truly in our DNA at BARC,” said Keyser. “For Fast Company to see that and consider us worthy of this distinguished list validates the determination of all our staff who are constantly striving to improve the quality of life in our community.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

As the Federal Communications Commission reviews winning bids for its recent $9.2 billion rural broadband auction, NRECA wants the agency to keep one question in mind: Can these winners actually deliver?

“If any bidder fails to do so, rural communities will be left behind in the digital economy for years,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA regulatory director. “The FCC must make sure that all auction winners will deliver the service they promised.”

NRECA and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative met with the staff of acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in early March. They brought the message that a timely and thorough vetting of all winning bids into the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is needed to weed out dubious technology and inadequate service.

NRECA and NRTC, in their March 9 follow-up letter to FCC, explained specific concerns about the substantial number of RDOF Phase I awards to bidders offering fixed wireless gigabit and low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite service at 100 megabits per second download and 20 Mbps upload.

“The technological ability of the proposed gigabit fixed wireless bids to fully cover census block groups throughout the country with full consideration for terrain, foliage … is not only completely unproven, but it also has yet to be fully explained in an acceptable way,” they wrote the FCC.

LEO satellite is in beta testing and has yet to demonstrate consistent 100/20 Mbps service. In addition, LEO startup Starlink “has admitted that it does not yet have a functional voice service, required of RDOF winners,” the letter notes.

The FCC is reviewing detailed technical and financial broadband deployment applications by 180 winning RDOF bidders. Winners must meet buildout milestones and reach all assigned locations by the end of the sixth year to receive their awards, which will be allocated over 10 years.

NRECA and NRTC underscored the need for the FCC to act soon. Rural census blocks presumably covered by the RDOF are ineligible for other federal broadband aid, such as the Rural Utilities Service’s ReConnect program.

 “The worst possible outcome for these rural communities would be for the agency to take eight months or more to determine any initial winning bidder is unqualified resulting in the community missing out on multiple broadband funding opportunities,” the organizations said. “This cannot be allowed to happen.”

Listen to a recent episode of NRECA’s Along Those Lines podcast about the RDOF auction:

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Century Mobile Home Park sits on the southern edge of Alamosa, Colorado, near the city’s regional airport. It’s an underserved area that has been in need of infrastructure upgrades for some time.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020 and schools went to online learning, kids there struggled with limited or no access to the internet.

As the virus surged in December and the park’s young residents faced continued academic difficulties, local school leaders made an urgent plea for help to an internet service provider and an electric cooperative.

“During the meeting, we were unable to come up with a definitive solution for the large trailer park, which houses many of our migrant and English-learner students,” said Marsha Cody, Alamosa School District’s interim superintendent. “About 10 days later, Monroe called with a solution.”

Monroe Johnson is chief technology officer for Ciello, the broadband arm of Monte Vista-based San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative. After the school’s call, he drove to the neighborhood, which is outside the co-op’s territory. It was apparent that an infrastructure upgrade was necessary to provide adequate internet service to the homes.

After visiting with City of Alamosa IT Director James Belknap, Johnson learned that the city had a fiber-optic cable running nearby. By connecting that cable to a fiber line Ciello has to a nearby city facility, the co-op broadband crew was able to build a fiber-backed wireless system to serve the neighborhood.

The city helped by executing the required permits in one afternoon—a process that can sometimes take months—to allow the co-op to erect a temporary pole.

By late January, the network was up and running, making broadband available to approximately 60 homes through a point-to-multipoint solution. As families sign up, Ciello is installing antennas on mobile homes to receive signals from the new equipment on the nearby pole.

“We have had concerns about these kids, but now with COVID, we rolled up our sleeves and figured out a way to get this done,” said Loren Howard, general manager and CEO of San Luis Valley REC and Ciello.

In all, Ciello has hooked up more than 200 schoolchildren in need of broadband during the pandemic, he said. Ciello’s $1,200 allowable cost per installation meant these families had no upfront cost to connect.

“We pulled out all the stops when this hit and schools started to close,” Howard said.

While the school district will help Century Mobile Home Park families pay for broadband during the school year, the co-op is exploring how to support them when school is not in session. Howard envisions a program like REC’s Operation Roundup that helps low-income members pay their power bills.

“We are working to set up a nonprofit to help families struggling financially to pay for broadband,” he said. “We hope to set it up by summer.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA

NRECA is urging a federal agency charged with awarding $1 billion for broadband deployment on tribal lands to make sure that these communities receive the best service possible with proven technologies.

NRECA sent recommendations to the National Telecommunications & Information Administration as the agency formulates its Tribal Broadband Connectivity Grants Program.

“The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has put the spotlight on the absolute and outright necessity for ubiquitous high-performing broadband for all Americans, and the broadband gap is more pronounced and persistent on tribal lands,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA senior director of regulatory affairs.

To ensure tribal communities get the most from these grants, NRECA is asking NTIA to inject flexibility and efficiency into the program created by a pandemic relief measure Congress passed in December. That means potentially offering grants to tribal communities even if they were covered by the Federal Communications Commission’s two previous rural broadband auctions: the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and the Connect America Fund.

O’Hara said an ongoing FCC review of RDOF winners may result in the disqualification of some bidders with unproven technologies. If NTIA excludes regions covered by those bids, which includes tribal areas, they could be shut out of federal broadband funding for years.

“Gigabit speed from wireless providers or service from low-earth-orbit satellites are not fully tested and may not pan out for these remote and challenging communities, so we highly encourage NTIA to include them in their new grant program,” he said.

NRECA is asking the agency to set a minimum data speed of 100 megabits per second download and 20 mbps upload broadband for any grant recipients. Applicants proposing gigabit and same up/same down speeds should be given priority, he said.

The agency also should reject a strict one-year timeframe for expending all grant monies and instead install a waiver process to allow additional time for the funds to be used, NRECA said.

“NRECA, on behalf of its members, strongly supports the efforts of Congress and the NTIA to address the widely recognized digital divide between unserved and served areas of the country,” O’Hara said.

“The recommendations submitted by NRECA will improve the program and benefit all applicants and the rural communities they plan to supply with vital broadband internet access.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Katherine McCardle Cole knows what it’s like to witness history—twice—from the front porch of her southern Mississippi farmhouse.

That’s where the 83-year-old was when Dixie Electric Power Association first strung power lines to her home when she was a child.

And that’s where she was again in January, as a truck from the co-op’s broadband subsidiary came up the hill. Katherine, who now relies on a wheelchair, asked her son Ricky to help her get there so she could watch the crew hang fiber-optic cable.

“She says, ‘Boy, I want to see that,’” said Ricky. “She sat there and studied them awhile. Naturally, she had a couple of ideas on how they could be more efficient with their time. Then she said, ‘I am just tickled to see that going up, because it is going to help all of us.’”

Ricky, who travels from Jackson to Ovett three days a week to work the family farm, says his mom is excited for the life improvements broadband will bring—online doctor visits, good video quality for her favorite shows and enough bandwidth for her grandchildren to do their schoolwork.

“She understands the full value and benefit of internet service, and she will be an excellent consumer of it,” he said. 

Katherine and her husband both have health challenges. Getting into and out of a vehicle for a doctor visit several miles away can be exhausting.

“As soon as we can subscribe for internet service through Dixie, she can sit in the living room and do an appointment with her doctor,” Ricky said. “Then my dad will have no excuse to miss his doctor appointments.”

Ricky said his mother is most excited about her grandchildren being able to stay for longer visits.

“Both have been virtual students since the pandemic began,” he said. “Now they only stay a day or two, then they have to get back to Jackson to do their schoolwork. She’s excited about the prospect of them being at the farm a lot more.”

Ricky said he’s looking forward to having access to precision agriculture applications and social media to boost sales of the farm’s produce.

“Broadband will add … quality of life and economic opportunity for our family,” he said. “I believe it will have a lasting positive impact on rural society and the rural economy and also the rural culture.”

He’s not alone. Randy Smith, general manager of Laurel, Mississippi-based Dixie Electric, says calls from members wanting broadband for education and telework started coming in long before the pandemic.

“Once COVID hit, it’s been nonstop,” he said.

With help from the federal CARES Act for COVID-19 pandemic relief, state grants and matching co-op funds, Smith said 600 households will soon have broadband service in this sparsely populated region dotted by blueberry growers, poultry operations and family farms. Another 1,800 have expressed interest in signing up.

Dixie Electric began exploring retail internet in earnest in 2019 after the state legislature clarified that electric co-ops could enter the broadband space. With board approval, two in-depth feasibility studies and strong member feedback, the co-op began building a fiber network and connected its first 112 customers in December 2020.

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Smith. “We had a couple of people tell us, ‘AT&T has been telling us in two to three years that they’re coming, and we’ve not seen them yet. In three months, you’re here.’”

Smith said being part of the history that Katherine Cole and so many other Dixie Electric members have seen is something he takes to heart.

“We’re excited about the opportunity and what it means for the members in our service area,” he said. “It’s been said a number of times, if co-ops don’t do it, then in lot of cases, it’s not going to get done. We’re excited about being part of the solution.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

The need to close America’s digital divide is as crucial as ever, and the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund stands to have a huge impact, with billions in funding for deploying broadband to unserved communities.

NRECA’s Brian O’Hara and NRTC’s Greg Santoro break down how the RDOF auction works and outline concerns about winning bidders with unproven technologies, and Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative’s Rachel Hauser gives the perspective from a co-op that’s looking to use RDOF funding to make major progress in its broadband efforts.

Listen to the episode below:

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Related Content:

NRECA Sends Concerns to FCC About $9.2 Billion Rural Broadband Auction
Members of Congress Urge FCC to Vet Provider Promises on Rural Broadband
Electric Co-ops Win $1.6 Billion in FCC Rural Broadband Auction

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

New broadband grants worth $300 million should only go toward proven technologies, and some rural areas should remain eligible for this funding even if they’ve won awards in other specific federal efforts to bridge the digital divide.

Those are the messages NRECA sent to the National Telecommunications & Information Administration as the agency finalizes rules for its Broadband Infrastructure Deployment (BID) grant program.

The Feb. 17 letter incorporates concerns that regions covered by initial winners in the Federal Communication Commission’s recent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction and similar programs will be locked out of new broadband funding if an RDOF grantee proves unable to provide adequate service.

NRECA and a large group of lawmakers raised these concerns to the FCC about a sizable portion of the $9.2 billion allocated in RDOF Phase I going to bidders with unproven technologies, such as fixed wireless to provide gigabit speeds and new low-earth-orbit satellite.

“People and businesses in rural America are struggling in a changed world that depends more each day on remote health care, remote education and remote work,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA’s senior director of regulatory issues for telecom and broadband.

“A rural area set to receive federal funds for internet at speeds below the current definition of broadband should not be precluded from support for a higher level of service that will meet the growing bandwidth needs of today.”

Because of the way RDOF funding is structured, rural communities where broadband projects fall short could be stuck for up to a decade with inadequate service and no access to additional federal funds, O’Hara said.

NRECA also recommended that NTIA consider the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic on supply chains and labor and, if necessary, allow grantees to spend funds beyond the program’s one-year deadline.

“The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has put the spotlight on the absolute and outright necessity for ubiquitous high-performing broadband,” O’Hara said. “Rules for funding rural broadband must be flexible and inclusive to meet this challenge.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

NRECA is urging the Biden administration to review the winners of $9.2 billion in federal funds for rural broadband to ensure they can truly meet their bid obligations.

“We stand up for the 42 million people we serve,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said. “When it comes to the unserved, it’s disproportionally rural communities. Broadband may be provided by electric cooperatives or someone else, but we must make sure the technology and the level of service are accurately reflected in the bids.”

Matheson on Feb. 1 sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission accompanied by a white paper from NRECA and NRTC describing concerns about certain winning bids in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I and offering remedies if an FCC review finds winners unable to meet their commitments.

“Our focus is on making sure that every unserved American has access to reliable and robust broadband that will meet not just their needs today but also into the future,” Matheson wrote. “NRECA and our member cooperatives stand ready to work with the FCC and other stakeholders to make sure RDOF Phase I is a success and to move forward with planning for phase II.”

The RDOF I, as the FCC’s largest broadband auction to date, is expected to connect 5.2 million unserved homes and businesses. The money will be distributed over 10 years as winning internet service providers achieve certain coverage milestones. Detailed technical and financial broadband deployment applications by the winning bidders were due Jan. 29.

To ensure the validity of all bids, NRECA recommends that the FCC first reject those the commission deems unable to meet their commitments. The FCC could roll money from any rejected bids into the future RDOF Phase II auction or hold a RDOF Phase 1.5 auction of these funds soon to ensure affected census blocks get served as quickly as possible.

Electric co-ops won bids totaling $1.6 billion to serve nearly 1 million locations in 31 states, largely to build fiber-optic cable networks. Fiber offers internet service with extremely low latency or interruptions and is easily scalable to speeds of one gigabit or more.

Some RDOF winners offered lower bids with unproven technologies. These include fixed wireless companies that promise gigabit service in heavily forested or mountainous areas and a low-Earth orbit satellite delivery project still largely in beta testing by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

“There are a lot of winning bids we are concerned about,” Matheson said in remarks discussing the RDOF. “This money is not there to fund a science experiment. It’s to fund broadband for rural Americans.”

RDOF winners that fail “will put people in rural America in substandard service for a long time. Because when that federal money is spent, there is no other money for that census block for a decade,” he said.

On Jan. 19, 160 senators and House members from both parties sent a letter to the FCC asking that RDOF winners be vetted to ensure they can fulfill their bid requirements.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

A bipartisan group of 160 senators and House members is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to verify that broadband providers can truly give rural Americans the high-quality service they promised to deliver.

NRECA and NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association are worried that some companies that made winning bids during the first phase of the recent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction do not have the ability to carry out their ambitious plans.

Lawmakers, in a letter sent Jan. 19 at the urging of NRECA, asked the commission to scrutinize the long-form applications that auction winners must now submit to the agency to validate that they have the technical, financial, managerial and operational skills and resources to perform as promised. Providers must submit the applications for approval to receive federal funds.

“We also strongly encourage the FCC to make as public as possible the status of its review and consider opportunities for public input on the applications,” the senators and House members wrote. “Such transparency and accountability will be essential to ensure the success of this program and to minimize any opportunities for fraud or abuse.”

One of NRECA’s concerns is that some companies won bids promising service they cannot deliver. For example, several companies said they could provide gigabit speeds using fixed wireless technology that is not widely available, said Kelly Wismer, NRECA’s lobbyist on broadband issues.

“Many of the winning applicants claim they will deliver levels of service with certain technologies that are only achievable in extremely limited conditions and terrain—or still not commercially available,” Wismer said.

Electric cooperatives also competed in the auction to provide high-speed internet service to rural communities, and the integrity of the auction and public trust in future auctions depends on companies providing realistic information about what they can provide, Wismer said. The congressional letter asked the FCC to vet all the long-form applications, so co-op applicants will also be scrutinized.

“At the end of the day, what’s important to NRECA is that the broadband provider, whoever it is, can deliver on the promises they made so unserved Americans get access to high-speed internet,” Wismer said.

Without proper vetting, lawmakers warned, “we fear that we will not know whether funds were improperly spent for years to come.” Wismer said rural residents will suffer the consequences if that happens because they “desperately need fast and reliable broadband service.”

That need has been underscored during the COVID-19 pandemic as rural students have struggled to do schoolwork at home.

The FCC announced winners of its RDOF action last month. Those winners are slated to be awarded a total of $9.2 billion to reach more than 5.2 million unserved communities throughout rural America. Electric co-ops were among the winning bidders and are expected to receive more than $1.6 billion to serve 900,000-plus locations in 31 states.

“We all hope this program will be a great success—and it is in that spirit that we write to encourage you to take every reasonable measure possible to ensure this turns out to be the case,” the lawmakers told the commission.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

For decades, communications providers in Georgia have claimed that pole attachment fees charged by electric cooperatives are too high, attempting to have the legislature mandate lower fees to subsidize their for-profit businesses. More recently, cable and internet service providers falsely claimed that pole attachment fees are the primary roadblock to extending broadband into the state’s unserved rural areas.

Now, the co-ops in Georgia have offered an incentive to push broadband deployment in the state.

In a precedent-setting ruling from the state public service commission, Georgia co-ops volunteered to temporarily drop new annual attachment fees to $1 per pole for broadband providers. The rate kicks in on July 1 and covers areas identified by the state as lacking broadband.

“If the pole attachment fee is the barrier, we just took that barrier away,” said Dennis Chastain, president and CEO of Georgia Electric Membership Corp., the statewide association based in Tucker.

As part of the ruling, the commission set a cost-based annual co-op pole attachment rate of $27.71 for existing equipment in areas now served with broadband. Companies qualifying for the new $1 rate will revert to the cost-based fee after six years of delivering broadband service.

Chastain said he believes the PSC ruling “absolutely could spur rural broadband service if cable providers are serious about wanting to expand in rural areas.”

“Our co-ops just want their members to have access to broadband,” he said. “They will forgo six years of cost recovery on a pole if that means their members get broadband service.”

Georgia EMC, the statewide trade association for Georgia’s 41 electric distribution co-ops and generation and transmission companies, negotiated the so-called “One Buck Deal” to end years of complaints by internet service providers about co-op pole attachment rates after the state legislature tasked the commission with resolving the issue by Jan. 1, 2021.

Chastain’s team worked with industry experts and used NRECA resources to develop the solution, which could be replicated by other co-op statewide associations facing similar battles.

“This is a big win for electric cooperative members and unserved communities in Georgia,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA senior regulatory director. “The Georgia PSC balanced the need for incentivizing broadband deployment and ensuring that cooperatives can fully recover the cost of communication attachments on their poles. This decision could serve as an example for other states when pole attachments are reviewed.”

As part of the deal, Georgia co-ops must report the total attachments to their poles and the total revenue from these attachments to the PSC every two years. Telecom companies were ordered to report their total broadband customers and investment in expanding broadband.

Danny Nichols, Colquitt EMC’s general manager, said the One Buck Deal “will help EMCs partner with broadband providers in unserved areas and ensure that our members’ investments in the co-op infrastructure will stay here in our own service territories and not leave the state for more profitable projects in urban areas.” 

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Electric cooperatives made a strong showing in the Federal Communications Commission’s largest reverse auction to fund rural broadband, winning bids expected to top $1.6 billion to serve over 900,000 locations in 31 states.

The FCC announced the winners of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund on Dec. 7 and released initial details about how the first $9.2 billion in Phase I funding will be distributed over the next 10 years among the nearly 400 winning bidders.

Nearly $7 billion in unobligated Phase I funds will be added to $4.4 billion for a Phase II auction the FCC is expected to schedule once it has implemented more granular broadband data collection and mapping.

RDOF bidders pledge to provide broadband access to residents of census blocks determined by the FCC to be fully unserved in Phase I and partially served in Phase II.

Of the electric co-ops that participated in the Phase I auction, 180 competed as part of five consortiums that garnered a total of about $1.5 billion. Five individual electric co-ops won a total of $59.4 million.

Co-op Connections Consortium with 13 electric co-ops won bids in eight states; NRTC Phase I RDOF Consortium with 51 electric co-ops won bids in 14 states; RDOF USA Consortium or FiberRise with 21 electric co-ops won bids in five states; Prospero Broadband Consortium with  about nine electric co-op won bids in three states; and Rural Electric Cooperative Consortium with 95 co-ops won bids in 22 states. These groups must divide the winning bids among the participating co-ops by Dec. 22.

The individual electric co-op winners were:

• Lutsen, Minnesota-based Arrowhead Electric Cooperative with $18 million to serve nearly 5,000 locations.
• Bandera, Texas-based Bandera Electric Cooperative with nearly $1.7 million to serve 534 locations.
• Cassville, Missouri-based Barry Electric Co-op with $14,500 to serve 26 locations.
• Grants, New Mexico-based Continental Divide Electric Cooperative with $38 million to serve nearly 8,500 locations.
• Roseau, Minnesota-based Roseau Electric Cooperative Inc. with nearly $1.3 million to serve 266 locations.

All winning bidders must file a detailed long-form application with the FCC between Jan. 14 and Jan. 29, 2021. Applications must include deployment plans specific to their RDOF awards and areas to be served. Over the 10-year disbursement of funds, the RDOF has set service milestones that include reaching every location assigned by the end of year six.

To enter the auction, bidders were required to select a speed tier established by the FCC. The allowable minimum speeds were 25 megabits per second for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads.

The RDOF used a weighted tier system and other rules advocated by NRECA to ensure co-ops with superior service could compete against other types of internet providers with slower or spotty service in rural areas. Many electric co-ops deploying broadband use fiber-optic cable that provides the fastest, most reliable connection.

NRECA was also successful in recommending that the FCC auction small census blocks to ensure bid areas were near co-ops’ service territories and infrastructure to reduce build-out costs or delays.

The FCC lauded the auction as a way to deploy high-speed internet access to more than 5 million homes and businesses currently without service. In announcing the initial results, the commission said that “99.7% of these locations will be receiving broadband with speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps and more than 85% will get gigabit-speed service.” 

NRECA continues to analyze the results of this huge auction and its impact on rural co-op members lacking access to broadband.

“There is cause to be excited about parts of the RDOF Phase I auction results, but in order for the auction to be considered a success it needs to deliver on its promises,” said Kelly Wismer, legislative affairs director at NRECA.

“For every American to have access to robust, affordable broadband, it’s critical that the FCC continue to do in-depth due diligence of all RDOF winners in a transparent way to ensure they can technically and operationally do what they have promised. Over 5 million Americans in rural communities depend on the FCC getting this right.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Last updated: Nov. 7, 11:30 a.m.

Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race sets the stage for the former vice president to implement sweeping environmental policy changes. But his planned agenda will likely be muted by what now looks to be a divided Congress, with a Republican-led Senate and a diminished Democratic majority in the House.

In the near term, Biden is expected to push for a broad economic stimulus plan shortly after he takes office in January, presenting opportunities for NRECA to secure more pandemic relief for co-ops and their consumer-members.

“Vice President Biden has been clear that the two most important things facing our country are health care, especially related to the pandemic, and the economy. We agree,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “We are focused on supporting our members in the development of the next COVID relief package, including RUS loan refinancing, shortfalls caused by nonpayment of bills and protecting those consumer-members who are least able to pay their bills.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he wants to move another economic stimulus package before the end of the year.

Matheson said NRECA will work with bipartisan champions in Congress to pass the Flexible Financing for Rural America Act, which could save co-ops more than $10 billion by allowing them to reprice loans from the Rural Utilities Service at current low interest rates. The bill would waive any prepayment penalties normally associated with refinancing.

“Our priorities remain the same: to protect the interests of America’s electric cooperatives and to ensure government doesn’t get in the way of affordable, reliable power,” he said.

Over the longer term, electric co-ops will work to shape a $2 trillion plan Biden campaigned on that would eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from the electric power sector by 2035 and replace fossil fuels with zero-emission sources such as wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower and biomass. The divided Congress could affect how aggressively the incoming administration pursues these goals.

 “The vice president has put forward principles, but the details really matter,” said Louis Finkel, NRECA’s senior vice president for government affairs. “And as those details emerge, we will evaluate them based on the tenets of affordability, reliability and resiliency.”

Biden has also touted the need to pass a comprehensive infrastructure spending bill to rebuild the nation’s aging highways and bridges and invest in public transportation and electric vehicle charging stations. He is pushing for rural broadband deployment as part of that plan.

 “Our long-standing approach—to work in a bipartisan fashion with lawmakers—is going to continue to be important,” Matheson said. “Regardless of who is in control of the Congress, we feel good about the champions that we’ve worked with on both sides of the aisle. No piece of legislation we’ve ever championed has been partisan, and we will continue to work with Republicans and Democrats alike.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

“The future.”

That’s what a $14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect rural broadband program means to Jo-Carroll Energy members, said President and CEO Mike Casper.

“The key takeaway is that our members in this beautiful slice of America will be more successful, healthy and educated,” he said Oct. 19, when USDA announced this year’s largest ReConnect award would go to the Elizabeth, Illinois-based cooperative. 

More than 7,600 people, 378 farms, 150 businesses, eight public schools, three fire stations, two post offices and two museums will gain access to high-speed internet thanks to the grant, which Jo-Carroll will use to expand the buildout of its fiber-to-the-premises network.

“America and economic development depend on a robust infrastructure, fiber being an essential component,” Casper said.

Jo-Carroll Electric is among about a dozen electric co-ops or related entities that received a total of nearly $64 million from the latest round of the ReConnect program, which is in its second year of giving grants, loans and 50/50 awards to rural broadband developers.

MiEnergy Cooperative, with headquarters in Rushford, Minnesota, and Cresco, Iowa, was another big winner with a $9.7 million ReConnect 50/50 grant and loan to broadband provider Harmony Telephone Co., which the co-op partially owns. The money will help provide high-speed internet access for 1,579 people, 96 farms and 31 businesses in northeastern Iowa.

“The pandemic has shown us that access to high-speed broadband in rural areas is just as critical and essential as access to electricity was in the 1930s,” said MiEnergy President and CEO Brian Krambeer. “This award will create life-changing opportunities for our rural members, allowing them to have the speeds necessary for working and learning from home.”

Central Alabama Electric Cooperative, based in Prattville, won an $8.6 million ReConnect grant to deploy broadband fiber to 13,853 people, 149 farms and 77 businesses across seven counties.

Decatur, Tennessee-based Volunteer Energy Cooperative will use a $3.7 million ReConnect grant to deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network to connect 2,687 people, 79 farms and nine businesses.

Ntera LLC, the broadband subsidiary formed by Cornell, Wisconsin-based Chippewa Valley Electric Cooperative and local internet provider Citizens Connected, will build a fiber network to serve 2,044 people, 33 farms and 33 businesses with a $3 million ReConnect grant.

Brownstown, Indiana-based Jackson County Rural Electric Membership Corp. will connect 4,881 people with a $1.9 million loan and a $1.9 million grant from the program.

Grants, New Mexico-based Continental Divide Electric Cooperative will use a $1.1 million grant to deliver broadband fiber to 85 people, four farms and a business, and Linden, Indiana-based Tipmont REMC’s  $1 million grant will go toward fiber-to-the-premises for 279 people, 10 businesses and 16 farms.

“The need for rural broadband has never been more apparent than it is now as our nation manages the coronavirus national emergency,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at an Oct. 21 award announcement.

“I am so proud of our rural communities, who have been working day in and day out, just like they always do, producing the food and fiber America depends on. We need them more than ever during these trying times and expanding access to this critical infrastructure will help ensure rural America prospers for years to come.”

USDA received 172 applications by its April deadline for ReConnect funds and has awarded more than $414 million so far this year.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

About 190 electric cooperatives have qualified to compete for up to $16 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s largest reverse auction to fund broadband internet for unserved areas across the country.

The FCC on Oct. 13 released its list of 386 qualifying bidders, primarily telephone co-ops and other types of internet service providers, for the first phase of the $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. The majority of electric co-ops are bidding through a consortium.

Winning bidders will receive funds over a 10-year period to deploy broadband to unserved census blocks identified by the FCC.

Phase I bidding begins on Oct. 29 and is expected to ultimately connect up to 6 million rural homes and businesses.

The auction requires providers to deliver minimum speeds of 25 megabits per second for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads. It will use a weighted tier system and rules advocated by NRECA to ensure electric co-ops with superior service are not sidelined by cheaper internet providers with slower or spotty service in rural areas.

The FCC also recently released the final eligible locations and funding levels by census block group bidding area. Successful bidders must meet service milestones set by the commission.

“The FCC has now provided RDOF bidders clarity on the number of locations available and the amount of funding available in a given census block group bidding area,” said Brian O’Hara, NRECA senior regulatory director for broadband and telecom.

“Information on the census blocks up for bid could have a major impact on the ability of a co-op to participate. Each co-op looking to participate in the auction will have to crunch the numbers and adjust their bidding strategy accordingly. A census block project allotted less-than-expected RDOF money may no longer pencil out.” 

The FCC is prohibiting RDOF money from going to areas receiving other government broadband grants, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service ReConnect awards.

Every home and business within the auctioned census block group must be served by the winning bidder, and no additional money will be awarded if more locations appear than were initially identified, according to the commission rules.

The Phase II auction for the remaining $4.4 billion, plus any unused Phase I funds, is expected to take place after the commission gathers detailed census data and mapping information to determine areas that remain without broadband.

Qualifying bidders for the first round of RDOF auction included at least 10 individual electric co-ops and four consortiums representing 180 electric co-ops.

The individual co-ops are Lutsen, Minnesota-based Arrowhead Electric Cooperative; Bandera, Texas-based Bandera Electric Cooperative; Cassville, Missouri-based Barry Electric Co-op; Young Harris, Georgia-based Blue Ridge Mountain EMC; Rio Grande, Ohio-based Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative; Dafter, Michigan-based Cloverland Electric Cooperative; San Angelo, Texas-based Concho Valley Electric Cooperative;  Grants, New Mexico-based Continental Divide Electric Cooperative; Bullhead City, Arizona-based Mohave Electric Cooperative; and Roseau-Minnesota-based Roseau Electric Cooperative.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

An electric cooperative in north-central Pennsylvania that has found a way to get older members online with help from tech-savvy teen volunteers is being recognized by the Federal Communications Commission for its contribution to bridging the digital divide.

The FCC will formally recognize Tri-Co Connections LLC, the broadband subsidiary of Mansfield-based Tri-County REC, as a Digital Opportunity Equity Recognition honoree in a virtual reception in October.

Tri-Co Connections is the only electric co-op among the FCC’s inaugural recipient class of 22 individuals, organizations and corporations.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks formed the DOER program, spurred in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, to “acknowledge the tireless efforts of Americans working to close the digital divide in communities without access to affordable, reliable broadband.”

“From rural areas to urban corridors, students to seniors, to say this year’s DOER honorees are a stellar group is an understatement,” Starks said in announcing the honorees Sept. 14.

Tri-Co Connections is being hailed for its Senior2Senior program, which delivers free eight-week computer literacy courses to older members, some of whom have never owned a computer. Local high schoolers, with staff from social agencies on hand, provide instruction at four area senior centers.

About 40 older members went through the program in late 2019 before it was interrupted by the pandemic earlier this year. One class recently resumed with social distancing.

“The FCC has made great strides in helping bridge the digital divide in rural areas, and to be recognized and receive this award from them is a real honor,” said Craig Eccher, president and CEO of Tri-Co and Tri-Co Connections.

“With our sprawling rural service territory, harsh winters, and long commutes to services and retail centers, high-speed internet can provide seniors a means of staying connected from the comfort of their homes 24/7.

“And with the nation in the grip of a pandemic, reliable online access has become even more critical to the elderly population in our rural areas.”

Bill Gerski, Tri-Co Connections senior vice president for business development and the lead creator of Seniors2Seniors, said the pandemic has amplified the need for older people to have internet access and learn computer skills for things like keeping in touch with family and friends, paying bills and accessing medical services.

“Seniors are the most vulnerable to COVID-19,” he said. “If they don’t have a computer to gain access to the outside world, it’s pretty lonely.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

As a new school year gets under way amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, electric cooperatives across the country are implementing broadband internet solutions to keep students connected to virtual classrooms even in the most remote and impoverished communities.

Orcas Power & Light Cooperative serves about 12,000 members spread across dozens of small villages that dot 20 islands in Washington state’s San Juan County. Only four of those islands have public ferry access. When the coronavirus forced school closures last spring, OPALCO and its internet subsidiary, Rock Island Communications, learned from the superintendent that what students needed most was fast, reliable internet at home.

Rock Island staff managed to quickly deploy fixed wireless or hotspot solutions to deliver internet access specifically to students’ school-provided learning devices. Now, every schoolkid in OPALCO’s service territory, no matter their location or family income, can learn in a virtual classroom.

“Access Education was realized, designed and executed to 114 homes in just a little more than two weeks,” said Suzanne Olson, the co-op’s public relations administrator.

Rock Island provided free connections for “a seamless solution for kids and the schools” and plans to continue the Access Education program through the 2020-21 school year, she said. 

School officials hailed the co-op internet provider as “an invaluable educational partner.”

“Now all district students and staff are connected in virtual classrooms with online resources to continue their teaching and learning,” San Juan School District Superintendent Kari McVeigh wrote to Rock Island.

Kit Carson Electric Cooperative shares a similar goal of connecting every student in its high-poverty service areas to broadband internet. Since the start of the pandemic, the Taos, New Mexico-based co-op has provided free broadband connections to more than 250 students in low-income households and offered them discounted monthly rates.

Connecting the remaining 1,300 students who lack broadband internet will cost about $2.6 million, said CEO Luis Reyes.

The co-op set up 23 permanent public hotspots for free Wi-Fi across the rural communities and tribal lands it serves. But Reyes said distance learning for many students in the five school districts and two universities the co-op serves will require more.

“Rural students without a broadband connection will not have the same opportunities or benefits as broadband-connected students,” he said.

Reyes recently testified on this issue before the New Mexico legislature, citing National Center for Education Statistics numbers that show “the digital divide disproportionately impacts students of color, those who are economically disadvantaged, and students in more rural and/or remote areas.”

“The nationwide disruption of K-12 and higher education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing school building closures has led to a deepening of the digital divide,” Reyes told state lawmakers.

Hamilton, Alabama-based Tombigbee EC’s freedomFIBER is installing broadband for up to 2,000 low-income member households that received vouchers from the Alabama Broadband Connectivity for Students program. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey marked $100 million in federal CARES Act funds for the public-private partnership to provide internet access for qualifying K-12 students this fall. The vouchers will cover broadband internet access costs through the end of December.

“We started our broadband project in 2017 to help our community, but we had to move fast to respond to new state and federal funding opportunities,” said Brenda Overton, CFO at the 9,000-member co-op. “We got all our bases covered. But this is what we live for—it is the cooperative spirit in action, because broadband has become an even more profound issue in the last six months with the pandemic.”

Like Kit Carson, many co-ops across the country installed free Wi-Fi hotspots in convenient locations for students and parents at the pandemic’s start and continue to run them as the new school year gets under way.

Tipmont REMC, headquartered in Linden, Indiana, has built a dozen hotspots across its service territory through its broadband subsidiary, Wintek. Burgaw, North Carolina-based Four County EMC set up access points at nine locations, including six schools. Young Harris, Georgia-based Blue Ridge Mountain EMC also offers connectivity in nine parking lots at churches, schools, a recreation center and store across its rugged territory.

Barry Electric Cooperative’s free Wi-Fi at three high school parking lots comes with parental control software “to restrict the use of the hotspot to keep kids safe,” said Laura Holycross, member services coordinator for the Cassville, Missouri-based co-op.

The co-op’s broadband subsidiary, goBEC Fiber Network, is also working with low-income referrals from a local community agency that received CARES Act funds for broadband. Holycross said the co-op will then provide internet service at a discounted rate to help make the funds go further.

Some co-ops are helping turn school buses idled by the pandemic into smart buses with mobile Wi-Fi hotspots. 

Southern Rivers Energy, based in Barnesville, Georgia, awarded four school systems $15,690 in Operation Round Up grants to equip up to 16 buses with Wi-Fi. Multiple internet providers can use the equipment to provide hotspots.

“As a parent working from home and home-schooling two children with poor internet service, I felt like this could be a huge benefit for our communities,” said Erin Cook, SRE’s director of marketing and member services.

Some co-ops have found other ways to fill their communities’ education needs amid the ongoing pandemic.

Flint Energies is bridging the digital divide by donating 200 Chromebooks, worth $90,000, to six rural school districts in its 17-county territory in Georgia. The Reynolds-based co-op and its charitable foundation held an emergency meeting in August and agreed this donation would be a quick, effective way to help rural families.  

“We saw our rural students’ great need for technology and did what we could in short order to improve their access to online learning,” said Marian McLemore, vice president of cooperative communications. “Our Chromebook donation would not be possible without those Flint members who participate in our Operation Round Up® program. The small change they donate each month made this gift and so much more possible.”

In the western mountains of Virginia, BARC Electric Cooperative gave $6,000 to each of the three public school systems it serves. The Millboro-based co-op applied matching funds from CoBank’s Sharing Success program to make the $18,000 donation possible.

“We are fortunate to have access to the CoBank program and even more fortunate to be in a financial position during this pandemic to be able to make these donations,” said Mike Keyser, CEO of BARC, whose broadband subsidiary BARC Connects also serves the schools.

“As a cooperative that both serves the community and is composed of people raised in the community, there is no more valuable investment this organization can make than in supporting our schools.”

Consolidated Cooperative, based in Mount Gilead, Ohio, was installing free Wi-Fi hotspots in the parking lots of the 10 school districts it serves with broadband internet when it got a different request: Could the co-op livestream a drive-up high school graduation?

The May ceremony for Centerburg High School’s class of 2020 would take place in its parking lot. Upholding state policy to control the spread of COVID-19, the graduates got out of their cars as their names were called and walked across a temporary stage to receive their diplomas before returning to their vehicles. Attendance was limited to one vehicle per graduate.

Pomp and circumstance were nowhere on Consolidated’s radar. Still, the co-op’s fiber installation crew flew into action when they got the call and ran temporary fiber out to the parking area, allowing friends and relatives to witness the ceremony safely from a distance.

“This event deeply touched all of us at Consolidated,” said Jarred Davis, network supervisor. “The ability to bring at least a little normalcy to our community meant so much to our team.” 

He said the pandemic has shown how co-ops can serve their communities in many ways, while also underscoring the need for broadband access throughout rural America.

Although Consolidated’s fiber team is ready to assist with future livestream graduations, Davis said he hopes things are different by the end of this school year. “We’re optimistic that the Class of 2021 will have a more traditional experience, but if that’s not possible, you can bet Consolidated will be running fiber through the parking lot again if our community needs us.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Indiana is awarding $36 million in state broadband grants to eight electric cooperatives—including $16 million to Tipmont REMC—to connect unserved rural communities and businesses.

The Next Level Connections Broadband Grant Program awards also include $12.5 million to Osgood-based Southeastern Indiana REMC and SEI Communications, $2.75 million to Martinsville-based South Central Indiana REMC, and $2.19 million to Orleans-based Orange County REMC.

Danville-based Hendricks Power Cooperative and Endeavor Communications received $851,085; Brownstown-based Jackson County REMC got nearly $500,000; New Castle-based Henry County REMC and Central Indiana Communications received $361,711; and Franklin-based JCREMC got $68,193 for broadband projects.

Southeastern Indiana REMC, with SEI, will apply the grants to three major broadband projects to connect more than 3,600 households, businesses and institutions across six counties.

Linden-based Tipmont and its broadband division, Wintek, will use the grants for 20 projects to build high-speed internet service for over 2,200 homes, businesses and institutions in five counties. The co-op said that shared infrastructure from these projects will help serve thousands more in the future.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored how important access to quality broadband is for modern life,” said John Gasstrom, CEO of Indiana Electric Cooperatives, based in Indianapolis. “We are so thankful to the state of Indiana for the support as our cooperatives continue to find ways to close the rural digital divide.”

Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, chosen by Gov. Eric Holcomb to oversee the Next Level Connections program with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, praised co-ops’ broadband endeavors.

“We are proud of our partnership with organizations like Indiana Electric Cooperatives and their members,” she said.

Internet service providers including electric co-ops could seek up to $5 million in grants for each broadband project if they provided a minimum of 20% in matching funds under the Next Level Connections program. In total, $51 million in grants for 50 broadband projects were awarded during this second round of the program. Southern Indiana Power, Tipmont and Jackson County REMC were the only three co-ops to win grants, totaling $8 million, during the program’s first round in 2019.

“Tipmont is committed to bringing fiber internet to our entire electric service area,” said Ron Holcomb, the co-op’s president and CEO. “These funds will help bring service where it is desperately needed.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

About $40 million in Tennessee COVID-19 emergency grants awarded to electric cooperatives will speed “life-changing” access to broadband internet for thousands in need this year.

Gov. Bill Lee tapped the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association to help find a way to support prompt construction of high-speed internet service to those most in need using the state’s share of a federal coronavirus relief package passed by Congress in March.

The Tennessee Emergency Broadband Fund was created in early August, and on Aug. 21 it disbursed $61 million to connect unserved or underserved residents. These projects must be completed by Dec. 15 to receive 80% reimbursement on build-out costs.

Ranging from $264,000 for Tri-County Electric Membership Corp. in Lafayette to $7 million for Volunteer Energy Cooperative in Decatur, 13 electric co-ops won 70% of the grants and will finish nearly 30 shovel-ready projects, TECA said.

“When the state asked, ‘Who can build rural broadband quickly?’ they turned to electric co-ops,” said Mike Knotts, vice president of government affairs for the Nashville-based statewide association.

“Tennessee’s co-ops are demonstrating their ability to expand internet access quickly and leverage grant funds for maximum impact,” Knotts said. “These emergency grants will accelerate the expansion of broadband to rural and remote areas and will help 17,000 Tennesseans get broadband by the end of the year when they otherwise would have had to wait for months or years.”

Rogersville-based Holston Electric Cooperative serves financially struggling communities in northeast Tennessee and, like many co-ops, has witnessed “the absolute necessity of robust broadband” to address public health mandates and the closing of schools, offices and even medical facilities, said CEO Jimmy Sandlin.

Its broadband subsidiary, HolstonConnect, will use a $5.6 million emergency broadband grant to boost its buildout in three communities and connect about 2,350 residential and 50 commercial customers by the deadline, he said.

The high bandwidth—with upload and download speeds of 300 megabits per second and buffering delays of less than 5 milliseconds—essentially allows real-time interactions with teachers and classmates or medical personnel, said Sandlin.

“In a lot of cases, serving these rural communities, broadband is literally life-changing,” said Sandlin. “Now, in their home they will be able to access just about anything—education opportunities, job and career opportunities, and have the ability to visit a doctor remotely.

“I’ve often wondered what it was like for those people to get electricity for the first time in the 1920s and 1930s. As we hook up broadband today, we get a taste of that.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

A $16 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will boost efforts by a Mississippi electric cooperative to deliver fiber-optic broadband internet service to more than 2,000 homes, businesses and farms.

Batesville-based Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Association is the first electric co-op to win funds from the ReConnect Program since the USDA received $100 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act passed by Congress in March.

TVIfiber, the co-op’s internet subsidiary, has built nearly 600 miles of its planned $60 million broadband network and has over 350 subscribers. The ReConnect grant will play a big role in getting this vital project completed in four years, co-op leaders said.

“This is a historic day for our cooperative and our member-owners, but it is also a great day for the state of Mississippi, and we are all very thankful for this opportunity,” said Brad Robison, CEO of TVEPA and TVIfiber.

“A TVEPA member at the end of a gravel road will soon have access to the same quality internet service of those in major metropolitan cities.”

Robison said the ReConnect grant will be combined with TVEPA’s $44 million investment to deploy fiber throughout the co-op’s 27,500-member service area. It will help connect 2,082 people, 331 farms, 32 businesses, a post office and six fire stations in six Northwest Mississippi counties, where the density averages six customers per mile.

“The grant will make a tremendous impact on installing accessible, reliable high-speed internet services to homes, farms and businesses in the unserved and underserved rural communities located in their service area,” said Michael Callahan, executive vice president and CEO of Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi in Ridgeland.

TVEPA also was among 15 co-ops to receive a grant from the Mississippi Electric Cooperatives Broadband COVID-19 Act last week. The state legislature created the $65 million program for co-ops earlier this year through funds from the CARES Act. Co-ops must match their awards and use the money to deliver high-speed internet access to unserved and underserved areas in Mississippi. TVEPA’s grant was $4 million. Other states are also looking at utilizing CARES Act funding to expand broadband access.

 “We have been truly blessed to receive such overwhelming support for this project, and I think that support underscores just how critical broadband is for the people in our part of Mississippi,” said Robison.

TVEPA launched its broadband buildout last year shortly after the state of Mississippi lifted legal hurdles for electric co-ops to provide retail internet access. Despite the “massive undertaking,” Robison said, “we are committed to providing our members with this life-changing, state-of-the-art technology.”

Robison and Callahan thanked Mississippi members of Congress, including Republican Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith and Rep. Trent Kelly. “A project of this magnitude must have partners,” said Callahan.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue lauded the co-op’s effort to deliver internet access when and where it is most needed.

“The pandemic challenges have shown the need for connectivity even more as our children have been in remote learning,” Perdue said. “It all depends on the connectivity, but the fact is that 20 million Americans don’t have that privilege. … Thankfully, parts of Mississippi will have access to this thanks to the efforts of Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Association and their fiber. We are excited that the ReConnect program is coming to Mississippi.”

The USDA created ReConnect in 2018 to build rural broadband with funds appropriated by Congress.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

For Monet Winters, the COVID-19 pandemic created a lot of hurdles for her to complete eighth grade at Santa Fe Indian School.

With school buildings closed in March and no reliable internet service at her home on the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, Monet waited for large paper packets of schoolwork from her teachers to arrive by mail.

The 13-year-old tried to log on with her mother’s phone or Wi-Fi at her grandmother’s house but was hampered by spotty service, distractions and data limits.

“It was pretty challenging,” said Monet. “I wasn’t able to do my schoolwork online. I was struggling.”

Enter Kit Carson Electric Cooperative.

Working with the five school districts in its service territory, the Taos-based co-op’s broadband division identified students in need and provided free internet connections to more than 150 homes, including 14 on tribal land.

Now, Monet says she enjoys “being able to reach my classes online and doing Zoom with my teachers. I’m able to reach sites faster and able to do my work without having to constantly look for places to do it. I can do it right here in my home.”

The families pay $24.95 a month for basic broadband service, but the connection and wireless router were free.

“For them, it was a shot in the arm, getting them connected, having their kids not left out,” said Luis Reyes Jr., Kit Carson’s CEO. “We treat all members the same. If a tribal student is low-income, we figured out a way to get them a drop.”

The co-op hired contractors to complete an aggressive schedule for connecting homes with rising seniors or multiple students. A CoBank line of credit helped finance deployment.

Reyes said reaching some tribal homes was particularly challenging. Running fiber on Native lands requires installing cable underground and working around rough terrain to reach remote locations. It also means working with tribal leaders and hiring contractors who know local customs.

“We had these positive relationships in place,” said Reyes. “These things can take months or years. We’re very proud of what we were able to accomplish.”

Lillian Torrez, superintendent of Taos Municipal Schools, lauded Kit Carson for taking on the challenge of connecting students in need.

“There were a few difficulties, but they didn’t give up,” Torrez said. “Some of the students live in areas where it was difficult to connect, and they had to dig trenches. Kit Carson just did whatever they needed to do.”

Of the families who received the free in-home connections, Reyes estimates about 75% will keep the service long after their children finish school.

“There is a risk in doing this, but I think it is worth taking,” said Reyes.

Kit Carson also announced it is making permanent 22 free public Wi-Fi hotspots it set up across its territory in response to the pandemic, including three on the Taos Pueblo and two on the Picuris Pueblo.

“We have them at city parks, community centers, low-income housing, basically everywhere. We did work with school districts, municipalities and tribes to determine where the best spots were,” said Reyes.

Reyes said Kit Carson has taken a hit in electricity sales since the pandemic shut down the ski slopes and schools. He sees broadband as a new opportunity to serve.

“This COVID is really going to change the way we do business and make broadband one of the elements of doing business,” he said. “It has made us think more about how resilient our rural communities are going to have to be.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Bill Gerski teared up a little when he received the email greetings.

They’d been sent by local senior citizens, many of whom had just learned how to turn on a computer for the first time, thanks to an innovative program created by the broadband subsidiary of Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative in Mansfield, Pennsylvania.

“I’ve never seen so many smiles,” said Gerski, the senior vice president of business development at Tri-Co Connections. “Now they are emailing their grandchildren. That’s what it’s all about.”

Dubbed Senior2Senior, the program was launched by Tri-Co last year to form classes where senior citizens are taught internet basics by tech-savvy high school seniors.

Tri-Co partnered with the Potter County Education Council, which coordinated the teenage volunteers, a local career and technical center and senior centers, where the classes take place. Local banks donated funds for computers and printers to get the classes going and to help seniors learn how to do their banking online.

With Tri-Co and Senior2Senior, “we have the technology, the broadband connection, and we have the opportunity to teach the skills necessary to everyone,” said Michele Moore, executive director of the Potter County Education Council.

About 40 people completed the eight-week course last fall, and another 20 were halfway through when the COVID-19 pandemic paused their progress.

Gerski says the ongoing health crisis, with its stay-at-home restrictions, has underscored how vital internet know-how is. Skilled seniors with online access can carry out necessary tasks like banking, shopping, telemedicine and visiting virtually with relatives, neighbors and friends. Some could even come out of retirement and work from home.

“There are seniors who would like to go to work and add income to their Social Security, but they have no computer skills,” said Gerski.

Tri-Co, which has received grants and loans to build broadband, connected its first fiber-to-the-home subscriber on April 7, becoming the only electric co-op subsidiary in the state to do so. Tri-Co has since hooked up 60 more homes. It plans to run fiber to all 22 of its substations and serve all its members in northcentral Pennsylvania over the next five to six years.

Tri-Co’s demographics are challenging and not unique among rural co-ops. The electric co-op serves 5.8 homes per mile, about half the national average. About 42% of its membership are seasonal. Another 40% are seniors—most of whom lack computer skills.

Gerski believes Senior2Senior can help solve the density conundrum required for affordable broadband by equipping retirees with the tools to take advantage of fast, reliable internet.

He said he welcomes calls from other electric co-ops that want to replicate Senior2Senior as they develop broadband in service territories where a large number of retirees reside.

“If we teach the senior members to use a computer, they will be broadband subscribers, and we will have happy members,” he said. “Everybody wins if our seniors know how to use a computer and have high-speed internet access.”

And that includes one 96-year-old student who described how people questioned why she was bothering to learn how to use a computer and get on the internet, said Moore.

Her answer?

“Well, I don’t want to be left behind. I want to be part of this.”

To learn more about Senior2Senior, please contact Bill Gerski at billgerski@tricoconnections.com

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Eric Cunningham was worried about his students.

As superintendent of the Halifax County School District in North Carolina, he knew that his 2,300 kids already faced hunger and other challenges of living in a low-income rural community. By early April, schools were closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and, without widespread internet access in the county, children were bound to fall behind in their learning.

That’s when the trucks from Aulander-based Roanoke Electric Cooperative arrived, ready to install a free, public Wi-Fi hotspot in school parking lots.

“It was a blessing,” said Cunningham. “We’re 100% free lunch, which means a lot of our students don’t have access to the internet for home use. We have to look at other means to support them. What I’ve learned from this pandemic is that the internet is needed like electricity, especially when it comes to learning.”

The quick hotspot buildout by Roanoke Electric is part of a trend among co-op broadband providers eager to keep their communities connected during the pandemic. Hotspot locations have included churches, parks, restaurants and co-op offices across rural America. Users can connect to work, do schoolwork, watch movies or shop, all from the safety of their vehicles.

In Fayetteville, Arkansas, OzarksGo, a subsidiary of Ozarks Electric Cooperative, partnered with several local school districts to create free Wi-Fi hotspots, including on school buses. Initially, a school district equipped the buses with Wi-Fi technology for cellular internet connections, then parked them in areas convenient to families. When this proved too expensive and slow for multiple users, the co-op delivered a superior solution through its fiber broadband network.

The hotspots are now connected to OzarksGo’s fiber optic network, offering high-performance internet connections.

“The addition of OzarksGo-provided fiber optic lines has been very beneficial for our students during this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic,” said Jeremy Mangrum, superintendent of the Elkins School District. “The increased speed and capacity that we can now provide at these locations has allowed our students to complete their work more quickly and efficiently.”

Steve Bandy, general manager of OzarksGo, said he found the district’s effort inspiring.

“We know how important broadband access is, especially now, and we were happy to help with this innovative solution,” he said.

Back in North Carolina, Cunningham said co-op hotspots are helping level the playing field for rural students during the pandemic by letting them work digitally rather than waiting for paper packets to arrive in the mail. Students without computers are using their cellphones to keep up with classwork and meet with their teachers.

“An entire new world is opening up for our children because of this,” Cunningham said.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Read More on the electric co-op response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

See NRECA’s COVID-19 hub on cooperative.com for key resources for co-ops, including guidance on business continuity planning and communication, as well as event schedule changes.

While many Americans are working remotely to curb the spread of coronavirus, cooperative line crews and broadband technicians are essential workers, keeping members connected to power and internet.

We talk to an expert at Great River Energy, a generation and transmission co-op in Minnesota, about how his co-op is maintaining the electric grid while keeping crews safe and cybersecurity tight. Then we hear from leaders at SEMO Electric Cooperative in Missouri and Jackson Electric Cooperative in Texas about safety measures for staff and meeting the challenge of growing demand for co-op broadband.

You can also listen and subscribe to Along Those Lines on your preferred podcast service:
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube

Related Content:

Read More on the electric co-op response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Find out more about NRECA’s podcast. Questions or suggestions? Email us at AlongThoseLines@nreca.coop.

BARC Electric Cooperative set out to upgrade its substation and down-line communications tools to broadband fiber internet in order to improve the co-op’s electric service, but it also aimed to connect its residential and commercial consumer-members to all that high-speed internet has to offer.

Since launching BARC Connects a few years ago, the Millboro, Virginia-based co-op has connected residents, schools and local businesses to opportunities they’d never had access to before.

Students at Mountain View Elementary School can now study math, literature and social studies without waiting for long dial-up connections, a historic mill built in the 1750s can attract visitors and sell its products online, and a local family dentist can serve his patients with efficient and affordable care, while giving back to his community.

Watch the video above to learn more.

For more on rural broadband, check out NRECA’s podcast:

As a third-generation owner-operator of his family’s 1,200-acre farm in Indiana, Steve Vail knows a thing or two about crop and livestock production.

As a director of an electric cooperative with a broadband subsidiary, he knows the transformative impact modern high-speed communication technology can have on a community.

Bringing these two critical perspectives together is why Vail is excited about his recent appointment, along with three other co-op leaders, to three Federal Communications Commission working groups on precision agriculture.

“I strongly believe that the viability of many family farms across the country may very well lie with availability of and access to technology that can only be facilitated through broadband,” said Vail, vice chairman of the board of directors of NineStar Connect in Greenfield, Indiana.

Precision agriculture involves computerized, connected technologies that bring greater efficiency to farm tasks like seeding, fertilizing, applying herbicide and watering. It can result in higher production and less waste.

Vail is a member of the FCC’s Precision Agriculture Connectivity Task Force, which was created by the 2018 Farm Bill to address the need for broadband access across farms and ranches. He will also serve on the task force’s working group on Accelerating Broadband Deployment on Unserved Agriculture Lands.

“For precision agriculture to happen in rural areas, we have to have that broadband infrastructure,” Vail said. “The task force will help the FCC understand what policies and regulations they can put in place to facilitate that.”

Mark Suggs, executive vice president and general manager of Pitt & Greene EMC, said the combination of smart farming equipment and internet access will enable U.S. farms to “compete in today’s economically depressed world.”

“Without reliable internet, the U.S. agriculture sector will continue to lag in these markets,” he said.

Suggs, a farmer and manager of the Farmville, North Carolina-based co-op for 37 years, will represent NRECA on the FCC group’s Mapping and Analyzing Connectivity on Agricultural Lands Working Group. He says identifying and measuring gaps in the availability of reliable internet access is the first key step.

“We then have to recommend measures to accomplish the goal of making broadband service available to all rural communities in America,” he said. “We have an opportunity to further lead the world in the agriculture field as well as in beneficial electrification. We cannot lose this battle.”

The FCC, in consultation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, also appointed Midwest Energy and Communications CEO Bob Hance to the Encouraging Adoption of Precision Agriculture and Availability of High-Quality Jobs on Connected Farms Working Group and Valerie Connelly of Choptank Electric Cooperative to the Examining Current and Future Connectivity Demand for Precision Agriculture Working Group.

Connelly said she looks forward to providing perspectives from a rural cooperative whose farmer members must meet state and federal Chesapeake Bay cleanup goals yet lack broadband access to adopt the best technologies. She is vice president of government affairs and public relations at the Denton, Maryland-based co-op.

Hance said he hopes their work for the commission “results in broader and widespread adoption of farm technologies that fundamentally improve the outcomes for rural farmers and ranchers and makes it possible to continue to increase yields, improve efficiencies and meet the ever-increasing demand for production.”

“In reality, all this can’t happen until real progress is made with extending true, robust and reliable internet to the rural parts of this country,” he said from his co-op based in Cassopolis, Michigan. 

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he is targeting $1 billion for precision agriculture from a proposed $9 billion 5G Fund to support “next generation wireless services.” “The FCC must play a constructive role in promoting these efforts and supporting investment in high-speed internet in ways that specifically help precision agriculture,” Pai said.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

NRECA is asking Congress to provide federal aid to the nation’s 900-plus electric cooperatives, some of which may suffer from budget shortfalls as their consumer-members struggle to pay their electric bills during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawmakers are expected to consider another sweeping relief bill later this spring as a follow-up to the $2 trillion CARES Act they passed in March. That legislation contained several provisions sought by NRECA, including an additional $900 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps some low-income and moderate-income consumers pay their utility bills. But not all struggling families qualify for that aid.

“Many states have mandated moratoriums on utility disconnections and some members of Congress have proposed a similar federal moratorium,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson wrote in a letter to congressional leaders. “At the same time, electric bill nonpayment is increasing nationwide and electric load from commercial and industrial users has dramatically decreased.”

Matheson reminded lawmakers that co-ops are not-for-profit, have no shareholders and return excess revenue to their consumer-members. Co-ops returned $1.2 billion to their members in 2018 alone.

“Because of this structure and the desire to keep energy costs as low as possible, some electric co-ops have limited reserve margins to sustain high rates of nonpayment,” he wrote. “As a result of nonpayments and load falloff resulting from economic hardship, some not-for-profit electric cooperatives are facing significant operational shortfalls. Without federal assistance, co-ops may face severe financial distress.”

NRECA is also asking lawmakers to include federal loan, broadband and disaster relief provisions in the next bill, including measures to:

• Direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service program to help co-ops save money immediately by taking advantage of historically low interest rates to reprice or refinance RUS debt without penalties for borrowers. Co-ops hold more than $40 billion in RUS electric program loans.
• Increase the amount of lending available under the RUS Guaranteed Underwriter Program. It provides guarantees for loans made to co-ops by private cooperative banks such as the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp. (CFC) and CoBank.
• Provide vouchers for needy families and small businesses to pay their internet service providers. This would allow broadband providers, including co-ops, to keep customers connected and provide new connections. Service is especially crucial during the pandemic for online school assignments, teleworking and telemedicine.
• Invest more in existing programs such as the RUS ReConnect Broadband Loan and Grant Program to bring high-speed internet service to rural areas.
• Direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to reimburse co-ops for past disasters. Some Florida co-ops, for example, still have not received FEMA reimbursements for rebuilding their systems after Hurricane Michael in 2018.

The letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Read More on the electric co-op response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

See NRECA’s COVID-19 hub on cooperative.com for key resources for co-ops, including guidance on business continuity planning and communication, as well as event schedule changes.

Jo-Carroll Energy’s broadband division, Sand Prairie, is the first 2020 recipient of a Community Connect grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and plans to use the $2 million award to deliver high-speed internet access to 420 homes.

“Expansion of fiber broadband is a much-needed development in our region,” said Mike Casper, president and CEO of the Elizabeth, Illinois, co-op. “This grant will assist our efforts to provide high-speed, reliable internet service to our co-op members.”

Sand Prairie will use the grant to build about 25 miles of overhead and underground mainline fiber-to-the-premise and another 32 miles of fiber connection drops. JCE will match 22% of the grant, nearly $460,000, to complete the $2.5 million broadband project. Construction is expected to begin later this year and be completed within two years. 

Sand Prairie offers broadband service of up to 2 gigabits per second to meet the rural area’s growing needs.

“This project supports economic development in our rural service area by increasing property values, attracting new residents and providing more residents the ability to work remotely, all factors that, in the long term, support community growth, boost our community’s tax base, enhance medical practices and support our schools,” said Jesse Shekleton, JCE director of engineering and project manager for the grant application.

JCE and Sand Prairie are applying for additional grants to continue extending broadband throughout their service territory. Sand Prairie was created in 2008 to build a fiber communications network for the co-op and was the subject of a NRECA case study. 

Casper sees fiber as unmatched regarding bandwidth, speed, uptime, latency and overall scalability into the future and a way to help maintain the community’s vitality.

“Fiber is a key element to keeping and drawing younger people and transforming more of the visitors to our area into residents who can bring in new businesses that heighten the quality of life for our members and communities.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

The urgent request from the county’s only hospital came on a Thursday evening: Could the local electric cooperative provide broadband internet access to a new clinic to test patients for COVID-19 by 8 a.m. the following Monday?

On a good day, a crew can excavate and drill around 500 feet of conduit to lay fiber cable. NineStar Connect’s closest connection to the facility was 1,800 feet away.

George Plisinski II, manager of telecom operations for the Greenfield, Indiana-based co-op, described the situation with a baseball analogy: “We were down 9-0 in the bottom of the seventh.”

Curveballs included obtaining state and city permits to bore into a state road and local street; getting gas, water and communication utilities to mark underground lines over the weekend; a late-season wet snow; and broken drilling equipment.

But NineStar Connect was up for the challenge, Plisinski said, because “we live our co-op principles every day and concern for community was right there with us.”

The co-op, which delivers electricity, broadband and water, called on state Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield and a co-op member, to expedite the necessary permits, a process that can take up to a month.

Crider, who chairs the Homeland Security and Transportation Committee, got the Indiana Department of Transportation to approve the permits within minutes.

“That our state senator would ask on our behalf to push a permit through on Friday night set the wheels in motion,” said Plisinski.

Local utilities agreed to waive the 48-hour call-before-you-dig period and worked through the night Friday to mark lines. At daybreak Saturday, six high-pressure gas lines—including one that fed the entire city of Greenfield—along with one 12-inch water pipe and phone lines were “all standing in our path to get where we needed to get,” Plisinski said.

Then came the snow. By nightfall, the co-op crew managed to dig halfway to its connection in heavy slush.

Early on Sunday, the pump on a vacuum excavation system failed, stopping their work. The co-op contacted the mayor, who dispatched two vacuum trucks to the scene, preventing a four-hour wait from another location.

The NineStar Connect crew was running two directional drills when one had mechanical issues, forcing them to use the smaller drill before abandoning that and digging the last 30 feet by hand.

“We’re using shovels and spades, digging it down 3 feet deep,” Plisinski said. “And it’s dark at this point.”

A little after 10:30 p.m. Sunday, March 15, the co-op provided the clinic with broadband internet.

“We stopped by there Monday at 7 a.m.; everything was good to go,” said Plisinski. “Two people were waiting to be seen while we were there before the clinic officially opened.”

NineStar Connect provided multiple-gigabit service through a private connection back to Hancock Regional Hospital. The clinic doctors and staff are using the same software and equipment as they did at the main hospital, which the co-op first connected nearly two decades ago.

“During a pandemic you still have accidents, heart attacks, babies being born. The hospital has to continue to provide those emergency services,” said David Spencer, Ninestar Connect director of marketing and public relations. “The fact that they’ve been able to steer some patients to this clinic is huge.”

The hospital agreed.

“Without the incredible work and dedication from our partners at NineStar Connect, we would not have been able to open and provide care to those that needed us most,” said Jenn Cox, business director for Hancock Health Gateway Services.

“From phones to internet, involving communication, patient flow and documentation was all contingent on having the technology and infrastructure they provided us.”

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Read more on the electric co-op response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

See NRECA’s COVID-19 hub on cooperative.com for key resources for co-ops, including guidance on business continuity planning and communication, as well as event schedule changes.

Several electric cooperatives that provide broadband internet are taking steps to keep rural communities connected during the coronavirus pandemic, including measures that go far beyond a Federal Communications Commission call to sustain service for low-income customers.

Those steps include delivering higher connection speeds, even for members who subscribe to more modest plans.

“Aside from being an early supporter of the FCC’s pledge, we’ve also increased our bandwidth to all of our fiber-to-the-home member-customers to 1 gig at no additional cost during this public health crisis,” said Michael Burrow, CEO of NineStar, an electric and communications co-op headquartered in Greenfield, Indiana.

“Because our service area is just outside of Indianapolis, we are seeing a huge influx of our members who are now working from home and, with schools likely being closed for an extended period of time, students being placed in e-learning circumstances. We feel if we can support our members and customers being able to conduct some parts of their business and personal lives at home, we should be doing that.”

FCC’s 60-day “Keep Americans Connected Pledge” asks internet providers to sustain service to any residential or small-business customers despite lack of payment, waive late fees because of economic distress, and open Wi-Fi hotspots to those in need.

Co-Mo Connect, the broadband business of Co-Mo Electric Cooperative in Tipton, Missouri, made the pledge and is increasing its subscribers’ internet speeds to their next service tier without charge as the pandemic amplifies the need for broadband at home.

“We are local, and our mission is to enhance the quality of life for the region we serve,” said Co-Mo Connect CEO Aaron Bradshaw. “We strive to achieve that every day and, as this virus spreads through our area, we must all do what we can to help.”

Kit Carson Internet, a subsidiary of Kit Carson Electric Cooperative based in Taos, New Mexico, said it will uphold the FCC commitments until the governor ends the health emergency and the schools reopen. The co-op said it will also work to ensure students in its service area stay connected through 14 public internet hotspots. It will offer reduced rates and waive fees to all students and new customers with high school seniors or college students.

KCI is also waiving fees for state and federal employees who can work from home if they have broadband internet access. 

“KCI is adjusting to the needs of our community and customers. This pledge is only one step we have taken,” said Mark Poche, manager of Kit Carson Internet.

BARC Connects is setting up free wireless hotspots in four Rockbridge County school parking lots to help students in rural Southwest Virginia continue their education online at a safe social distance inside vehicles. 

The broadband subsidiary of the Millboro-based BARC Electric, which has also signed the FCC pledge, expects the hotspots to be fully operational by April 2.  

“As we all navigate these unprecedented times, BARC desires to provide as much internet access as possible to aid our students, teachers and educational institutions,” said Tish Blackwell, communications specialist at the co-op.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Read more on the electric co-op response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

See NRECA’s COVID-19 hub on cooperative.com for key resources for co-ops, including guidance on business continuity planning and communication, as well as event schedule changes.

Updated: March 27, 2020

The $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress will bring help to electric cooperatives and their consumer-members by offering millions in aid for families struggling to pay their utility bills and billions in grants for small businesses.

At the same time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took action to provide greater flexibility and certainty for co-ops that rely on the Rural Utilities Service for loans and other financial assistance.

NRECA urged Congress and the Trump administration to include aid for co-ops as part of federal relief efforts aimed at boosting the struggling U.S. economy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. CEO Jim Matheson wrote letters to congressional leaders and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue asking for specific measures to help co-ops and their consumer-members.

The Senate passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act on Wednesday, and the House approved it Friday by voice vote. Congress is expected to pass more relief legislation in the weeks ahead.

Here are some of the key provisions for co-ops in the nearly 900-page bill:

• Adds $900 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps low-income and moderate-income consumers pay their utility bills.
• Adds $100 million for grants through the USDA RUS ReConnect broadband program and $25 million for the RUS Distance Learning and Telemedicine grant program to expand investments in telemedicine and distance-learning services in rural areas.
• Adds $45 billion for the disaster relief fund administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Co-ops often rely on these funds to restore power after storms and other emergencies.
• Creates a $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program that provides federal government loan forgiveness (under Small Business Administration Section 7(a) loans) for small businesses to pay up to eight weeks of basic expenses, including electric, telephone and internet bills.
• Creates a $10 billion SBA program to provide grants of up to $10,000 to small businesses to pay their workers and pay rent or mortgages, among other uses. Co-ops with fewer than 500 employees may be eligible for this grant program if they plan to apply for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans. Certain restrictions on those loans have now been waived.

The legislation does not include a federal moratorium on disconnecting consumers who fail to pay their utility bills. Some states have already imposed moratoriums, while others have asked utilities to voluntarily suspend disconnections during the coronavirus emergency. Many co-ops have already stopped disconnections and deferred bill payments for members who are experiencing financial hardships.

Earlier in March, President Trump signed legislation that would expand emergency family and medical leave and paid sick leave for co-ops and other small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. The CARES Act clarifies payment limitations for those programs. It also waives the 10% early distribution penalty for employees who withdraw up to $100,000 from their 401(k) retirement savings or from their Individual Retirement Accounts.

The USDA also announced this week that it is providing relief for borrowers through its RUS program. The department extended for 60 days the deadline for telecommunications and electric program borrowers and grantees to submit their annual audits, which normally are due by April 30. It also waived borrower covenant requirements for loan agreement financial ratios for the entire 2020 calendar year.

The agency is waiving all financial reporting requirements associated with existing RUS loan and grant covenants through June 30. USDA also will help electric program borrowers gain access to funds more quickly at current low interest rates by considering extensions of loan terms on a case-by-case basis.  

“For over 80 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and America’s electric cooperatives have partnered—not just to keep the lights on—but to promote the overall well-being of all rural America,” Matheson wrote to Perdue. “In this extraordinary and challenging time, when those communities are threatened, our partnership is more important than ever.”

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Read more on the electric co-op response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

See NRECA’s COVID-19 hub on cooperative.com for key resources for co-ops, including guidance on business continuity planning and communication, as well as event schedule changes.

Congress has passed legislation to improve the accuracy of federal broadband maps, making it easier for electric cooperatives to secure funding to bring high-speed internet service to the rural communities that need it most.

The Senate voted Tuesday to approve the bipartisan Broadband Deployment and Technological Availability Act, known as the DATA Act.

Senators had passed a previous version of the legislation in December, but they had to vote on it again because the House made changes when it approved the bill earlier this month.

The bill requires the Federal Communications Commission to collect more detailed data from broadband providers. The legislation also makes it illegal for providers to knowingly provide false or incomplete information to the FCC and allows co-ops, consumers, local governments and others to challenge FCC maps with their own data.

The bill will require the FCC to update its existing broadband maps, said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who co-sponsored the DATA Act.

President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.

“Bridging the digital divide is impossible without accurate service maps showing who has broadband access and who doesn’t,” said NRECA CEO Jim Matheson. “The Broadband DATA Act charts a course for a more connected rural America and is a welcome bipartisan solution under the leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee. It builds on the success of more than 100 electric co-op rural broadband projects and injects much-needed accountability into the broadband mapping process.”

Co-op leaders have long known that national broadband maps do not adequately reflect the lack of access throughout rural America, said Kelly Wismer, NRECA’s legislative affairs director on broadband and telecommunications issues. The legislation, which contains key provisions that NRECA supported, will make it easier to identify areas that need service and make those communities eligible for federal funds.

Dan Stelpflug, director of operations, engineering and technology at Allamakee Clayton Electric Cooperative in Postville, Iowa, testified before a House subcommittee last June that faulty FCC data was causing a financial hardship for the co-op and its roughly 10,000 consumer-members. The co-op ended up having to essentially pay back 23% of a $1.4 million broadband grant it received in 2014 because the grant was based on bad data that indicated the co-op could reach more potential customers than was actually possible.

“More accurate data and mapping showing broadband availability is a key part of reaching all rural Americans with high-speed broadband service,” he said recently. “This will enable us to clarify existing gaps in coverage, and harmonize the diverse solutions that will be required to help rural Americans keep pace with their urban counterparts.”

Faulty federal data can wrongly show that rural residents have widespread access to broadband when only a few people in a community are connected, Wismer said. It also can deprive co-ops of the chance to compete for broadband grants if the data inaccurately shows that communities are already served.

“Congressional action on broadband mapping will go a long way toward making sure millions of rural Americans are not locked out of the modern economy due to inaccurate maps,” Wismer said.

Broadband service is essential to allow communities served by co-ops to grow local businesses, expand online learning and access telemedicine, the bill’s supporters said.

“This bill would be an important step for collecting more precise data to improve the FCC’s flawed maps that waste resources and stifle economic development opportunities,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the bill’s lead sponsor and chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a co-sponsor, said it will help kids in rural America stay there when they grow up by increasing their opportunities.

“When rural Americans have access to the infrastructure needed to support improving access to broadband then we keep rural America competitive in the 21st century and beyond,” she said.

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.

Arlington, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson today applauded congressional passage of S. 1822, the Broadband DATA Act.

“Bridging the digital divide is impossible without accurate service maps showing who has broadband access and who doesn’t,” Matheson said. “The Broadband DATA Act charts a course for a more connected rural America and is a welcome bipartisan solution under the leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee. It builds on success of more than 100 electric co-op rural broadband projects and injects much-needed accountability into the broadband mapping process.”

The Broadband DATA Act improves Federal Communications Commission broadband data collection by:
• Requiring providers to include more detailed coverage information in their self-reported data.
• Setting accountability standards for reporting.
• Establishing a process for third parties to challenge provider-reported broadband coverage data.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing more than 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

The best approach to helping economically challenged communities is to have “a bias toward innovation.”

That was one of NRECA CEO Jim Matheson’s messages during a Feb. 12 panel discussion at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioner’s Winter Policy Summit in Washington, D.C.

Electric cooperatives “serve a lot of underserved people,” he said. “We need innovation to do it. We need flexibility to do it right.”

Matheson spotlighted innovation adopted by several electric co-ops:

• Cherryland Electric Cooperative in Grawn, Michigan, joined state and local agencies to provide low-income members with bill credits toward the co-op’s community solar program.

• North Dakota Association of RECs partnered with state telecom co-ops to set up a rural development center that runs a food bank, provides access to loans and helped form a cooperative child care program.

• Roanoke Electric Cooperative in Aulander, North Carolina, with half its territory defined as “persistent poverty,” is offering modest charging subscriptions to electric vehicles owners plus no upfront costs to install in-home EV chargers.

• Western Farmers Electric Cooperative and its member distribution co-ops in Oklahoma are working with investor-owned utilities and others to build the nation’s most comprehensive public EV charging network.

Matheson’s message to state utility regulators on providing rural broadband access to underserved communities was simple: Talk to electric co-op leaders within their borders. More than 100 are deploying retail broadband to rural communities; many others are studying the feasibility.

Whether a state regulates them or not, “co-ops can be an important voice,” Matheson said.

“Co-ops can give insight at the state level in terms of current laws and regulations, and how they either assist or impede” rural broadband development.   

For example, easements can be a hurdle to rural broadband. Co-ops could be prohibited from stringing fiber-optic cable on their poles for retail internet access or face litigation after the fact. 

Matheson also underscored the importance of economic development for rural areas, but he noted those efforts may be for naught without broadband internet access.

“If you don’t have broadband, you aren’t going to get economic development,” he said. “It’s that fundamental.”

Listen to a recent podcast episode on Advancing Energy Access for All, a new NRECA initiative that focuses on co-op efforts to improve the economic health of local communities:

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., hosted Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on a recent trip to Walberg’s rural Michigan district, where Pai publicly heralded efforts by electric cooperatives to bridge the digital divide.

During his visit, Pai got a firsthand look at a co-op broadband initiative, watching crews from Cassopolis-based Midwest Energy & Communications hang fiber and install equipment.

“He was fully engaged and engrossed in the whole construction process,” said MEC CEO Bob Hance.

Pai’s trip preceded the much-anticipated Jan. 30 vote on the rules for the new Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, a $20.4 billion reverse auction aimed at bringing high-speed internet to the country’s unserved communities.

Pai and Walberg’s itinerary included a discussion about the challenges of rural broadband with Hance, Craig Borr, president/CEO of the Michigan Electric Cooperative Association, and Sally Talberg, who chairs the Michigan Public Service Commission. Walberg is an MEC member and serves on the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over the FCC.

Currently, only three electric co-ops deliver fiber-to-the-home in Michigan, but Hance said that number could more than double with help from the new FCC funding program.

“The RDOF is a great catalyst,” he said. If co-ops win bids in the RDOF, that will “provide relief to some of the boards about the capital commitment” for broadband.

MEC won a $5 million grant in 2018 from the Connect America Fund auction, a precursor to the RDOF. The co-op’s highly successful broadband deployment has a 70% take-rate in its most mature areas and nearly 12,000 residential and business subscribers in just five years, said Hance.

“We get calls every day from people outside our member network asking, ‘How come you can’t serve us?’” he said.

Phase I of the RDOF auction will allocate $16 billion to unserved census block areas identified by the FCC, and Phase II will auction the remaining $4.4 billion. An official schedule for the auction has yet to be announced.

Cathy Cash is a staff writer at NRECA.

ARLINGTON, Va. – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson applauded today’s vote by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to approve rules for the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction for broadband projects.  

“America’s electric co-ops are optimistic that the auction rules will lead to meaningful expansion of broadband access in rural America,” Matheson said. “We appreciate the commissioners’ willingness to apply lessons learned from previous auctions and implement changes that will promote higher speeds by winning RDOF bidders. The need to bridge the digital divide has never been more urgent. 

“More than 100 electric cooperatives have stepped up to deploy broadband and connect their communities to the modern economy. But for many co-ops, broadband projects are simply not feasible without grant funds. We look forward to partnering with the FCC on projects that will boost the quality of life and economic outlook for hundreds of rural communities.”

Cooperatives welcome this important change from the last FCC broadband reverse auction because it will enhance FCC’s selection of projects with the highest speed and lowest latency, and therefore result in a far higher number of locations being served with future-proof technology.

Cooperatives have demonstrated their commitment to bringing high-quality broadband service to rural areas. More than a hundred co-ops are engaged in broadband projects. CAF II, the last FCC reverse broadband auction, was the first time electric co-ops were eligible for FCC rural broadband funding. Thirty-two electric co-ops won 35 bids in that 2018 auction.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national trade association representing more than 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation’s landscape. As local businesses built by the consumers they serve, electric cooperatives have meaningful ties to rural America and invest $12 billion annually in their communities.

-###-

Updated: Dec. 20, 2019

Congress on Thursday passed the RURAL Act, protecting more than 900 electric cooperatives throughout the nation from the risk of losing their tax-exempt status when they accept government grants for disaster relief, broadband service and other programs that benefit co-op members.

The Senate’s vote to approve the legislation came two days after the House approved it as part of a sweeping tax and spending package. President Trump has signed it into law.

The RURAL Act was NRECA’s top legislative priority for the year because of the profound threat to the business model of not-for-profit co-ops. Tens of thousands of co-op leaders, employees and members across the country rallied to advocate passage of the bill.

“This package preserves the fundamental nature of the electric cooperative business model and will save electric co-ops tens of millions of dollars each year,” said CEO Jim Matheson. “Moreover, it protects co-op members from unfair increases in their electric rates and provides certainty to co-ops that leverage federal and state grants for economic development, storm recovery and rural broadband deployment.”

Lawmakers passed the popular bipartisan legislation in the final hours of the 2019 session as part of a larger tax and spending bill that funds the government through September 2020.

More Spending Bill News: Congress Saves Co-ops Millions in Pension Costs, Repeals ‘Cadillac Tax’

The bill’s passage fixes a problem created in 2017 when Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which redefined government grants to co-ops as income rather than capital. That change made it difficult for many co-ops to abide by the 15% limit on non-member income to keep their tax-exempt status. The RURAL Act once again exempts grants from being counted as income and is retroactive to the 2018 tax year.

Without the fix, some co-ops would have had to start paying taxes this spring after receiving grants in 2018 or 2019 to repair storm damage, bring high-speed internet to rural communities or invest in renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs. Many co-op leaders feared they would have to raise rates for members to pay the new taxes.

The legislation attracted more than 300 co-sponsors in the 435-member House and nearly two-thirds of the senators. The effort was led in the House by Reps. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., and Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and in the Senate by Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Tina Smith, D-Minn.

NRECA lobbyist Paul Gutierrez credited the victory to a collaborative campaign strategy that included co-ops’ grassroots efforts to alert their senators and representatives to the issue.

“This was an amazing NRECA team and membership effort, including co-op members at the end of the line,” he said. “We had great legislative champions in the House and Senate, and they worked tirelessly to get this included in the final tax package.”

Previous coverage of the RURAL Act:

Co-op Voices, Part 1: How Losing Tax-Exempt Status Would Hurt Rural Residents

Co-op Voices, Part 2: CEOs Discuss Impacts of Tax Law Glitch for Members

As Majority of House Signs On to RURAL Act, Lead Sponsors Press for Vote

Q&A: Senate’s Lead RURAL Act Sponsors Discuss Their Strategy for Passage

Q&A: RURAL Act’s Lead House Sponsors Say Co-op Voices Are Key to Bill’s Success

Co-op CEO to Congress: Help Expand Rural Broadband by Passing RURAL Act

NRECA CEO Jim Matheson: ‘If We All Stand Up,’ Co-ops Can Save Tax-Exempt Status

Erin Kelly is a staff writer at NRECA.