Craighead Electric Cooperative Corp. (CECC), an 85-year-old electrical co-op in rural Arkansas, first started delivering fiber in 2018. Initially, it was for internal purposes: "We needed to communicate with critical electrical infrastructure out on the grid," said Jeremiah Sloan, CEO of CECC. 

But the realization that 44% of its membership lacked access to Internet service of 25/3 Mbit/s led CECC to start delivering fiber to customers as an ISP called Empower Broadband.

"Fast forward to today, we've got about 4,000 miles of fiber, and we have 13,000 subscribers and roughly 25,000 premises passed," said Sloan.

Sloan joined Light Reading at the Fiber Connect conference to discuss CECC's work in rural Arkansas and a new partnership between Craighead Electric and other electric co-ops across the state to deliver wholesale fiber.

"Our primary mission with that organization is to make Arkansas the most connected state in the country," he said.

Here are just a few topics discussed in this video:

• CECC's history and role as a broadband provider (00:50)
• What's different about getting broadband from an electric co-op (03:00)
• Why CECC "mothballed" its fixed wireless project (04:00)
• How Craighead streamlined its fiber deployment (06:30)
• New middle mile partnership with other electric co-ops (07:40)
• Plans for federal funding (11:10)

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Related stories and links:

• Render's Sam Pratt on using tech to streamline fiber network builds
• Arkansas electric co-ops band together for bandwidth
• How Render uses geospatial data to get fiber builds up to speed
• EPB's Katie Espeseth on delivering the 'world's fastest Internet' in Chattanooga

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