Rock County Broadband Alliance

Identifying the Problem

• Few options to rural customers

• Plans had extremely high fees and data limits

• Speed for conducting even basic level activities was limited

Discussions with current providers

• Verizon

• Century Link

• Exede

• Frontier Net

Other Providers within region

• MVTV

• Lismore Coop Telephone

• Alliance Communications (Co-op)

Meeting with providers

• Meetings led to partnerships and solutions

• MVTV expanded into Rock County

• Lismore Telephone Coop developed a wireless solution

• Alliance Communications Fiber to the Home Project

Fiber project projected costs

• Total project $14.95 Million

• Alliance Communications $8.95 Million

• Broadband grant $5.0 Million

• Rock County Tax Abatement Bond $1.0 Million

Project Impact

• 600 Miles of Fiber

• 1261 Homes and Farms served

• 68 Businesses

• 21 Anchor Institutions

• Entire county available to have 30 x 5 speeds as base offering

• Can currently provide speeds to 100 X 25

• Will offer Gigabyte speed within next couple of years

Advice

• Meet with everyone and see what they need to develop in your area

• Continue to stress the problem

• Find partners, they can be private or public

• Be a squeaky wheel!