Rural Gigabit Broadband Arrives
Canadian Valley Electric Cooperative to pursue Gigabit Broadband and Smart Grid infrastructure.
The Board of Directors of Canadian Valley Electric Cooperative have authorized the cooperative to proceed with the build out of a fiber optic network throughout its system for smart grid communications and to provide gigabit speed broadband services to its rural members.
Improving Life, Serving Community. Rural Gigabit Broadband Arrives
The Canadian Valley Electric Cooperative team is as excited to provide broadband internet service throughout our rural territory and we are committed to making it happen as quickly as possible. We are anxious to see how you leverage the connectivity to improve life, stimulate learning, access healthcare services, implement precision agriculture, and drive overall economic development.
Broadband in Rural Oklahoma
A little over a year ago the board of directors began looking at the idea of providing broadband internet services throughout the Canadian Valley footprint, commissioning a feasibility study to examine the financial viability of such an audacious project. The need was there, but there was still some hesitation to enter into an entirely new business. Covid changed that as it became suddenly critical to have reliable high-speed internet connections to support distance learning, telehealth, agriculture, and large numbers of people suddenly working from home offices. High-speed, reliable internet access emerged as a necessity that echoed the rural electrification needs of the 1930s and 40s that electric cooperatives were formed to serve, when nobody else was willing.
In rural areas, the electric cooperative model works very, very well. Enabling access to infrastructure that would otherwise not exist. The rural population in the 1940s recognizing the need for electrification took the long-term view of a member-owner model to bring essential services to the rural areas and stimulate economic growth. With the Covid pandemic, we found ourselves in that same situation today and hence, building on our mission statement of “Improve Life, Serve Community” your cooperative has elected to once again provide much needed services within our footprint.
In June we took the steps to form a wholly owned subsidiary of the cooperative, CVEC Fiber, LLC. CVEC Fiber, LLC, is charged with providing best in class, bi-directional gigabit speed internet access for our members and selected off-system sites utilizing a fiber to the home model which will easily scale for faster speeds as needs evolve.
It is with great enthusiasm that our staff is embarking on this once-in-a-career opportunity. It is our intent to provide equivalent or better broadband service than in the urban areas while maintaining the same personal service you have come to expect from our member owned cooperative.
Engineering and pre-construction activities have been occurring for several months with main-line construction to begin within the next few weeks. Canadian Valley Electric members can sign up for notifications of when service will be available in your area at CVECFIBER.COM. Members will just need to enter their account number which can be found on their utility bill and non-members will be asked to provide address and contact details so that we can reach out when the construction crews will be in your area.
The Evolving Grid. Everyone benefits.
30 years ago, we were appalled to have a dropped telephone call with hard wired phone lines. Today we are somehow tolerant of repeated dropped calls from the advancing technology of cell phones. We gained portability and coverage, but we sacrificed reliability and for some reason accepted that new standard of service. High-speed communications to the grid edge throughout our system will position us to take advantage of all the data and controls necessary to address instability that is brought on by intermittent power generation resources and still provide a reliable distribution grid to the same or better level as you experience today.
Regardless if a cooperative member subscribes to the broadband services they will still benefit from improved reliability and stability of the electric power supply.
Increasing amounts of intermittent distributed generation resources, battery storage, and distributed load management are placing demands on the electric distribution grid beyond what it was originally designed for, which was one-way power distribution from a centralized source. These new resources are requiring that the electric distribution grid now be managed for bi-directional flow and real time load balancing while juggling increasing amounts of digital information to ensure the stability and reliability of the complex distribution system.
That’s a lot of words that boils down to the need for extraordinary measures to ensure the reliability and stability of power supply. High speed communications to the grid edge ensure real time visibility not only for outage notification and restoration, but also for preventative voltage regulation, self-healing grid infrastructure, and advanced rate models that allow for the most efficient utilization of electricity that is being provided intermittently from a wide variety of sources.
Reliability matters. Our recent experience with the late October ice storm illustrates the need for the most reliable electric distribution grid possible. The continual legislative changes and implementation of multiple energy supply sources require more information, in real time, and more control than ever before to maintain the reliability you have come to expect.