Bringing Fiber to EVERY Home

Canadian Valley Electric Cooperative strives to achieve its mission statement “Improve Life, Serve Community” daily.

In 2019 when the board of directors began considering broadband, they took a detailed look at options to serve the hardest-to-reach members in our community. Internet providers have consistently prioritized profits. Many providers are willing to run fiber down main street to serve lucrative commercial accounts and densely populated residential areas. This model leaves many residents clinging to inferior services that were constructed decades ago. Any company with a profit motive - investor-owned, municipal, or private equity - has zero incentive or desire to serve the harder-to-reach areas. As an electric cooperative, we see history repeating itself, and parallels to the electrification era of the 1930s and 1940s abounded. It was then that electric cooperatives were formed as customer-owned, non-profit businesses to meet a need and bring electrification where nobody else has an incentive to do so. Customer-owned cooperatives have a natural affinity to provide the best service economically available with a self-regulating performance mechanism built in. If the company provides bad service, the customers can vote to change the company. With this background, our board of directors came to the following conclusion:

“The Cooperative is the only business model with a natural incentive to serve the most difficult to serve places.”

In 2020 Canadian Valley Electric directors voted to improve life and serve community by forming a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) subsidiary, CVEC Fiber, to bring high-speed broadband to EVERY Canadian Valley Electric customer. Fiber to every home, not just fiber down main street.

“Fiber to every home, not just fiber down main street.”

Cooperatives expanding into broadband are committed to providing the best broadband economically available throughout its entire community. Improving next generation education opportunities and expanding access to rural healthcare and business opportunities, no matter the location. In this manner, CVEC and CVEC Fiber are advancing their mission to Improve Life, Serve Community.