Looking for better broadband internet? Intercounty Electric wants to hear from you.
The cooperative is exploring its options for offering broadband wirelessly in the counties it serves in South-Central Missouri. Last year it acquired Texas County Rural Area Information Network, a non-profit formed in 1997 to provide internet access in its home county.
For now, Intercounty is working to integrate TRAIN billing into the Intercounty system and improve the quality of service to existing customers. The scope of future expansion has not been determined, but officials have indicated they recognize the need.
Dent County residents, whose broadband options are limited, are urged to contact Intercounty about bringing TRAIN broadband to the area. Intercounty is building a database of potential customers before deciding where to expand and in what order.
“We have been receiving a lot of calls from people in the Salem area,” said Heather Satterfield, director of communications for Intercounty. “So, we’re getting their names on a list, and when we get ready to expand, we’ll look at high-interest areas where people want the option to have service.”
Intercounty has already upgraded the connection at two of the existing wireless towers in Texas County and is working to upgrade to a fiber connection at two others. Having a fiber connection increases the amount of bandwidth available to customers being served off that access point.
“We do know we want to expand,” Satterfield said. “We are looking at expanding after we get our billing all taken care of and get our connections upgraded at these existing towers so we have the capability to push it out farther.”
Intercounty fully intends to expand and improve internet service, which is delivered wirelessly from towers equipped with transmitters to receivers typically placed on the roofs of customers’ homes with a line-of-sight to the tower.
“We’re not going to settle for just Texas County,” Satterfield said. “We know we want to be able to offer that to eventually all of our members. It will just take a little bit of time… It’s not moving necessarily as fast as we want it to but we’re getting there. We’re moving in the right direction.”
At last summer’s Intercounty Electric Cooperative Association annual meeting, members participated in a survey about Internet services. An overwhelming need and interest were expressed by people in attendance.
Since then, members have continued to express their interest in the cooperative offering an internet option to areas where there may only be dial-up service available or where high-speed internet is unaffordable. Intercounty serves all or parts of Texas, Dent, Shannon, Phelps, Crawford, Laclede, Pulaski, Wright, Maries and Gasconade counties.
The acquisition of TRAIN by InterConnect Broadband, a subsidiary of IECA, was finalized and announced last June. Officials said at the time that target areas and signup opportunities would be announced as broadband internet becomes available in those areas.
In the meantime, anyone interested in broadband internet being offered in their area is encouraged to contact IECA at (866-621-3679) or InterConnect Broadband directly at (417) 967-2900 to get their names and addresses on the list.
“There is not an economic development issue more crucial to rural Missouri than improving broadband,” said Donald Dodd, Dent County Industrial Development Authority president. “No matter what you do these days, you need a good internet connection. The stats bear out that rural Missouri is lagging behind and needs to do something.”
He added, “Many of our small towns have good broadband, but you get a few miles out of town, and we aren’t near where we need to be with download and upload speeds. It hurts development, be it with existing businesses, attracting new businesses or even residential. People demand good broadband these days, for business and home, and we have to provide it.”
Part of the Intercounty expansion will be signing contracts with water departments, cities and other entities to put equipment on their towers. Connections need to be upgraded to fiber because with TRAIN, the bandwidth was all being backhauled from one tower to another tower to another to reach Raymondville, the only fiber location.
TRAIN offered 2-, 4- and 8-megabit internet packages. “Once we have fiber at those access points, those speeds can be increased,” Satterfield said. “That was part of TRAIN’s struggle. They were maxed on what they could offer . . .We want to make sure we have a good backbone before we really start trying to expand.”
Dodd is hopeful that the expansion will provide Dent County with internet access it sorely needs.
“Just like coops such as Intercounty brought electric to rural communities decades ago, I strongly believe they can be part of the solution to the broadband problem,” he said. “We are excited to hear about the potential of Intercounty’s broadband project, and as a rural community we want to know more about it as it develops.”
Some information in this story was published previously by the Houston Herald.
