Oklahoma’s electric cooperatives with fiber subsidiaries are bringing fiber to rural Oklahoma homes and businesses with nearly 15,000 miles of line

Central Rural Electric Cooperative serves more than 23,000 meters across seven counties in north-central Oklahoma. For more than 10 years, the cooperative has been working to increase system reliability and support connectivity for its rural membership, however, efforts to do so have fallen short of reaching everyone. “The pandemic really highlighted the disparity of access […]

In the 1930s and 1940s, quality of life in rural Oklahoma and rural America blossomed with first-time access to electricity. Rural electric cooperatives energized sparsely populated communities bringing vitality and prosperity. Today’s generations in rural America meet a different challenge: they need reliable access to broadband to foster that same vitality and prosperity in the […]

OzarksGo, a telecommunications subsidiary of Ozarks Electric Cooperative, began in 2016 with the goal of providing fiber-to-the-home service to the cooperative’s 80,000 members across Northwest Arkansas and Northeast Oklahoma. At the beginning of the project, nearly half of the cooperative’s members did not have access to high-speed broadband. Just as rural electric cooperatives brought power […]

Oklahoma’s electric cooperatives power the lives of more than 523,000 Oklahomans. With infrastructure in all 77 counties, co-ops serve 93% of the state’s landmass. Collectively, Oklahoma’s electric cooperatives are committed to delivering power that is safe, reliable, affordable and environmentally responsible. Electric cooperatives go where no one would go. Serving primarily rural areas, the electric […]

Rick and Tracy Roberts could probably run Stilwell Hardware Inc. without internet service — but not for very long, Rick said. The local hardware store’s inventory, point-of-sale and security systems are all cloud-based and rely on a stable internet connection to function. “We were doing backflips when we discovered OzarksGo was coming in our area,” […]

Taking high speed internet where no one else will has been a cornerstone of OEC Fiber’s mission from the beginning. According to the National Center of Education Statistics, nearly 30 percent of Oklahoma homes do not have internet access. Over the past decade, internet connectivity has arguably become as essential as electricity, yet over one […]