Georgia Authorizes Electric Cooperatives to Deliver Rural Broadband

What's happening with rural broadband? Hundreds of thousands of Georgians have been asking this question for several years now. These voices are being heard, as lawmakers in Atlanta and Washington have launched several rural broadband initiatives. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) signed Senate Bill 2 (SB 2) on April 26, 2019, authorizing electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) to provide broadband services. Being a retail broadband provider may not be feasible for many EMCs, but SB 2 also provides all EMCs greater latitude to leverage their own infrastructure—power lines and rights of ways, etc.—to help remove barriers to broadband deployment for other service providers.

[Bill Verner is Senior Vice President with Georgia Electric Membership Corp., a statewide trade association representing 41 electric cooperatives in Georgia, Oglethorpe Power Corp., Georgia Transmission Corp. and Georgia System Operations Corp.​]