Ozarks Electric Cooperative this week announced a plan to offer high-speed Internet, television and telephone services through a new subsidiary called OzarksGo.
The service will offer subscribers in northwest Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma access to all-fiber gigabit Internet, with speeds of up to one gigabit per second download and upload, with no data limits or restrictions, according to a news release. Premium television and telephone services will also be available.
Officials said the plan is to offer Internet speeds that are the fastest available anywhere in the world.
“For far too long, this area has been plagued with either a lack of true broadband availability or lack of reliable and affordable service,” said Randy Klindt, general manager of OzarksGo. “This project will bring real broadband to some area residents and businesses for the first time, as well as introduce real competition in speed, reliability and price to a region held captive by large national carriers.”
Klindt is the former general manager of Co-Mo Connect, a subsidiary of Co-Mo Electric Cooperative, in Tipton, Mo.
From the release:
Under Klindt’s leadership, Co-Mo Connect launched the first gigabit residential service in rural America in 2014 and has become the standard of rural fiber optic builds. It was also the nation’s first privately funded cooperative telecommunications initiative to serve every one of its members, with more than 14,000 current subscribers.
Alyssa Roberts, vice-president of marketing and member relations, said the service will first be offered to Ozarks Electric Cooperative members, but could eventually be extended to neighboring communities and homes outside the comonay’s network.
“We will be launching a ‘Crowd Fiber’ website to aggregate demand in and around our territory,” Roberts said. “We firmly believe that we succeed as a region so providing this much needed service to as many people in our region as possible is a win-win for everyone.”
Roberts said specific locations won’t be announced until early June, but added that a portion of Fayetteville is currently planned to be part of the phase one rollout.
The entire build out is expected to take several years at a cost of about $25-$35 million per phase. If all goes according to plan, the service could be launched within 12 months.
To read the announcement, visit ozarksgo.net.
