When East Central Electric Cooperative was formed in November of 1938 it was guided by the cooperative principles and a commitment to serve.  The goal was to improve the quality of life for all, not just those within city limits.

Today that goal continues with ECE’s fiber subsidiary ecoLINK Fiber.  By extending crucial fiber services to homes and businesses throughout the ECE service territory, ecoLINK is creating a positive impact on all sectors of the rural economy and way of life.  Farm automation, medical care, and distance learning have become possible in a time when people need it most.  

“Rural residents have been ignored by telecom companies, just like they were ignored by electric companies years ago.  What we’re doing with ecoLINK Fiber is exactly what co-ops did when they brought electricity to rural America.  We’ve come full circle,” says Tim Smith, East Central Electric Cooperative general manager.

Once ecoLINK has completed its project of extending fiber to homes and businesses throughout the ECE service territory, the commitment will continue with service being available to communities and non-members as well.  

“Bridging the gap and providing is who we are and where we started,” Smith explains.  “Serving others by providing a better quality of life is critical to our mission.”

ecoLINK Fiber is currently working in phase 4 of its 5 phase project with over 8,200 subscribers and 3,600 miles of line built.  Fiber service will be available to all ECE members by March of 2024.

Fiber subsidiaries from Oklahoma’s electric cooperatives serve 67,000+ subscribers?

This is what we call the COOPERATIVE DIFFERENCE.

Powering lives with reliable broadband across 46 counties in Oklahoma and Arkansas with more to come.

This is what we call the COOPERATIVE DIFFERENCE.

Growth is exciting. Being able to improve someone’s quality of life while you do it, that’s even better.

“We have the best and most passionate team in the business. They set the bar and continue to raise it. From the techs in the field who are there for our subscribers seven days a week to the team members supporting subscribers 24/7/365, the entire team is dedicated to ensuring that we deliver an extremely affordable and reliable internet, phone, and TV service.”

– DAVID GOODSPEED | PRESIDENT, OEC FIBER

OEC Fiber began construction in April of 2018 and connected our first subscriber in February of 2019. As of March 1, we have provided over 27,000 subscribers with a service that is rapidly becoming as essential as electricity.

Oklahoma is ranked 47th out of 50 states in terms of average speeds available. Only 79% of Oklahomans have access to at least 25 Mbps of download speed and 3 Mbps of upload speed. That’s not enough.

OEC Fiber is stepping up to fill the gap and ensure everyone can access these much-needed services. We are dedicated to providing quality, reasonably priced, high-speed internet, TV, and phone services to all of central Oklahoma.

“OEC Fiber does an amazing job of taking care of our members and subscribers. They take their mission of improving our members’ and subscribers’ quality of life seriously. Every decision is made with that in mind. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of such an outstanding organization.”

– PATRICK GRACE | CEO, OKLAHOMA ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE

People are seeing their lives changed every day by the addition of OEC Fiber to their homes. From making working from home to saving on services, OEC Fiber is changing the world one subscriber at a time.

By definition, cooperatives are people-centered enterprises owned, controlled and run by and for their members to realize common, social, and cultural needs and aspirations. 

Cooperatives allow people to take control of their economic future and, because they are not owned by shareholders, the economic and social benefits of their activity stay in the communities where they are established. Profits generated are either reinvested in the enterprise or returned to the members. 

Cooperatives stand out because they are member-focused, not-for-profit and community driven. They go the extra mile because they care. Cooperatives are built on the premise of neighbors helping neighbors.

As they did in the 1930s and 1940s, co-ops are once again stepping up and bridging a divide; this time, it’s not the urban vs. rural divide for electric power, it’s the digital divide. It is important for co-ops that their members have reliable internet service to thrive in business, access to health care and education. This is the cooperative difference. 

Lake Region Electric Cooperative has always been member-focused. In the 1930s, rural America had been left in the dark as electricity made its way across the country. Electricity had become a modern necessity, and cities enjoyed the opportunities it brought. But rural folks had to do without until the men and women of Lake Region stepped up and formed the electric cooperative.

In the 21st century, new technology emerged as an essential service for homes and businesses: broadband internet. This technology transforms lives and brings economic development to the areas that adopt it. Once again, rural members have been left behind. Lake Region surveyed their members back in the early stages of our fiber-to-the-home build-out and overwhelmingly saw a need for reliable, affordable, and fast internet with great customer service.

Lake Region was already providing satellite internet to bridge the gap for many rural folks experiencing dial-up service. Lake Region knew its members needed their co-op to step up to the plate and offer a superior service where no one else would.

The members came to Lake Region asking for help from various internet service providers that offered abysmal speeds, poor customer service, and no existing investment in infrastructure for reliability and future growth. Lake Region knew they could fill this void and become the local trusted internet provider their rural communities needed.

In 2012-2013 Lake Region started a fiber pilot zone, which included 200 miles of fiber optic lines. The pilot zone was completed and revealed it would be beneficial to the cooperative and their members.

After studying the feasibility of the pilot zone, Lake Region formed a fiber telecom subsidiary and started a complete three-phase build-out of the entire electric service area. A large project was underway being constructed from the ground up.

The goal is to provide access to the best broadband service around to each and every community within LREC’s service territory across Cherokee, Wagoner, Muskogee, Rogers, and Mayes Counties, even those in the most remote areas. The board of directors and management were firmly committed to providing internet, TV, and home phone to all Lake Region Electric members who choose to subscribe.

“Currently, we are near 9,000 subscribers, and halfway through our final Phase III build-out plan of our entire electric grid just over 3,000 miles of line. We hope to have service available to all our electric members in late 2022 or early 2023,” said Glen Clark, Director of Marketing and Member Services.

Lake Region Technology & Communications is a locally-owned and operated subsidiary of Lake Region Electric Cooperative located in Hulbert, Okla., and is a member of the Cooperative Broadband Coalition.

Bringing fiber to rural Oklahoma homes and businesses with nearly 15,000 miles of line and counting.

This is what we call the COOPERATIVE DIFFERENCE.

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 to high-speed internet,” said Hunter Robinson, CEO of Central. “There were parts of our service area with limited or no access.”

The need to prepare the grid for the future and support rural connectivity became even more evident when Central learned that one school district in its service area estimated that 40% of its students lacked access to high-speed internet. This data was confirmed in 2020 when the State Board of Education shared that approximately 25% of Oklahoma public-school children lack access to home internet.

In March 2020 Central sent a survey seeking feedback from a random selection of its members on their interest in fiber internet. The results were overwhelmingly positive: 97% supported moving forward with fiber.

Other key findings included:

• 83% of the members surveyed currently had internet service.
• Of those who did not have internet service, reasons for not subscribing were expense (37%), followed by availability (29%) and reliability (27%); 8% indicated they do not want/need internet service.
• The most common internet connections were land-based wireless at 37% and satellite internet at 31%.

Prior to launching its fiber subsidiary, Centranet, the cooperative’s 22 electrical substations had fiber communications, but that’s where the fiber stopped. Now, the fiber project is providing significant advantages and positioning of the cooperative for the future demands of the grid.

“Communicating with downline devices allows for a preemptive strategy that could avoid outages and assist with predicting the location of faults,” Robinson said. ”Ultimately, these steps will increase system reliability and safety. Expanding fiber communications throughout our entire service area will increase our connectivity in the field, as well as allow for more automation capabilities, which will make us more efficient and benefit our members.”

Centranet LLC is a locally-owned and operated subsidiary of Central Rural Electric Cooperative located in Stillwater, Okla., and is a member of the Cooperative Broadband Coalition.

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 communities they call home. Rising to the challenge are several rural electric cooperatives.

Nine distribution electric cooperatives that are members of the Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives (OAEC) have formed fiber subsidiaries to provide broadband access in their service areas. These cooperatives have banded together to form the Cooperative Broadband Coalition (CBC) to advance the mission of rural broadband and to collectively represent the interests of those they serve.

The CBC is an independent organization that is affiliated with the statewide association, OAEC, which is voluntarily supported by 30 member-systems: 27 distribution electric cooperatives and three generation and transmission electric cooperatives.

“Electric cooperatives exist to serve their member-owners,” said Chris Meyers, OAEC general manager. “We commend the cooperatives that have been able to expand their service to provide rural broadband to the communities they serve. This essential service brings a significant positive impact to rural areas.”

The electric cooperative business model is based on member ownership and the delivery of a service that benefits all members. While conditions are unique for every electric cooperative, the co-ops that have been able to form a fiber subsidiary were able to do so based on accessibility of grants and other favorable economic conditions. A few other electric cooperatives are actively pursuing the formation of a fiber subsidiary while others partner with existing providers, when feasible, to extend service to their rural membership.

This is what we call the cooperative difference.