Rural Tennessee co-op a year ahead of schedule on fiber buildout

The state of Tennessee is expected by some estimates to receive as much as $896 million through the federal government's $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. But some customers in the rural southwest region of the state are on target to get fiber broadband service before those funds roll out, thanks to a buildout from Southwest Tennessee Electric Membership Corporation (STEMC) and Aeneas, which is nearly a year ahead of schedule. STEMC, like other electric co-ops in the US, decided several years ago that it wanted to build out fiber for its membership. In the process of determining whether to start or acquire their own broadband provider, STEMC discovered that local Internet and telephone company Aeneas was looking for a buyer following the death of the company's owner. Together, through a combination of grants from the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and state grants funded through Tennessee's share of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, STEMC and Aeneas are working with a total of $35.6 million in federal and state funds for this buildout.