Broadband Providers Lean on Pioneer Electric Support to Help Bring Service to Territory
- We know that there are areas within Pioneer’s service territory that could benefit from high-speed, broadband internet access.
- We believe the extension of broadband service into underserved areas of our service territory would provide members with opportunities and enhance their quality of life.
- With the constantly changing high-speed, broadband landscape, at Pioneer, we have taken the approach to support existing high-speed internet providers by agreeing to provide temporary, discounted pole attachments rate reductions to support the experts in the industry in reaching more customers in areas that lack options or are underserved. Pioneer is also expediting pole replacements when requested by broadband providers.
- These options provided will not affect our members’ electricity rates
- Discounts are short-term to avoid Pioneer members subsidizing expenses of broadband companies.
- Pioneer does not currently employ experts in high-speed, broadband internet and it would take significant time and investment to add broadband to Pioneer’s electric system infrastructure and get started.
- To provide broadband service to every Pioneer member, it would require a significant investment that would be shared among all co-op members, regardless of whether they used our broadband service.
- Some areas Pioneer provides electric service to already receive broadband service. These companies include NKtelco, Spectrum and Metronet.
- In areas covered by these providers, Pioneer would add to the competition and would have difficulty properly recovering our costs
- As owners of the co-op, those members already using other broadband service would still be paying for Pioneer’s broadband service.
- We believe this would be an inefficient use of Pioneer’s resources at this time.
- As we wait to see what the experts in the industry do next, regarding rural broadband expansion, internally we continue to explore options and ways that we can be ready to support our electric cooperative members in underserved broadband areas who may not have options come to fruition in the next several years.
