Image
Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
Montana Coop Turns Up the Speed: 16 Counties, 23,000 Square Miles
By
on
Montana may have high speed limits on roads, but this Montana coop’s network will let you surf the web even faster. Triangle Communications received an almost $30 million loan from the USDA to provide rural Central Montana with high-speed Internet access.
Triangle Communications will finish upgrading its aging copper network - a technology mostly used for telephone - to a fiber network that can support both telephone and high-speed Internet. The loan comes from the USDA’s initiative, announced in July, promising $85 million to improve connectivity in rural areas. The Triangle Communications coop is upgrading its entire system spanning 16 counties (that’s more than 23,000 square miles from the Canadian to the Wyoming border!).
Since 1953, the coop has been at the forefront of changing technologies. It’s based in Havre but expanded in 1994 with the purchase of 13 exchanges from US West (now known as CenturyLink). The coop began upgrading to fiber in 2009 in order to provide its members with state-of-the-art service and technology.
For more information about the network and the award, check out local news coverage of the almost $30 million loan and Triangle Communications’ video.
Geoterm
Related Stories
New $4 Million Open Access Project Brings Fiber Service To Rural West Virginia
A new $4 million project funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission and the U.S. Economic Development Administration will help bring affordable fiber broadband to long underserved parts of West Virginia. The project primarily targets the rural counties of Randolph and Tucker, long stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.
Caution Ahead: RDOF and BEAD Collision Course
The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund was supposed to drive affordable fiber into vast swaths of long-underserved parts of rural America. But the program has been plagued with problems since its inception, putting both current and future broadband funding opportunities at risk. French-owned cable company Altice is the latest to announce it would be defaulting on 18 census block groups in Louisiana.
Rural Cooperative Hardy Telecommunications Does The Heavy Lifting In Unserved West Virginia
Hardy Telecommunications, a small community-owned cooperative, connected its first fiber customer in 2013. Slowly and consistently, the cooperative has been expanding its fiber network and is now serving over 5,000 subscribers.
Burning Desire to Bring Affordable Fiber Service To Rural Washoe County, Nevada
Officials in Washoe County, Nevada have struck a new public private partnership (PPP) with Digital Technology Solutions (DTS) to deploy affordable fiber service into the long-neglected rural towns of Gerlach and Empire, Nevada. The deal is part of a broader effort to bring affordable access to underserved residents just out of reach of broadband access.
Tribal Broadband Bootcamp Advances: Underground and Above
IT-minded Tribal leaders and instructors gather in southern California for the 11th Tribal Broadband Bootcamp as the three-day intensive learning experience continues to offer the ultimate Indian Country networking experience. All of the previous TBB’s offered hands-on training, but this particular bootcamp took it up a notch as TBB instructors set up a full deployment demonstration, illustrating how fiber is buried and/or deployed aerially.
Alabama Electric Cooperatives Power Ahead With $35 Million In New State Broadband Grants
Four different Alabama electric cooperatives receive nearly $35 million in grant funding to expand fiber access to more than 11,092 rural Alabama homes and businesses. Meanwhile, the big incumbents operating in the state, Charter and Mediacom rake in lion's share of the rest of the state's federal Capital Projects Fund.