Rural Electric Cooperatives: The Digital Divide’s Salvation

Rural electric cooperatives (RECs) have some specific characteristics that make them uniquely qualified to undertake significant and meaningful strides in conquering the digital divide. Beyond their community focus, RECs possess important skills and assets that make expansion into broadband very favorable. Those skills and assets include:

• Network Assets — a utility network possesses many network assets important to the operation of a broadband network, including fiber backbone, poles, rights-of-way, substations, pedestals, buildings and trucks/vehicles.
• Skills and Knowhow — operating an electric network enables skills and know-how that translate well into building and operating a broadband network.
• Customer Relationships — established billing relationships with customers provides a captive and engaged audience for broadband services.
• Government and Community Relationships — building broadband networks often involves partnering with local governments, and RECs can leverage long-standing government and community relationships for that purpose.
• Location — as RECs typically already serve these rural markets, proximity challenges are nonexistent.

[Alyson Moore is manager of North America marketing for Corning Optical Communications.]