CEO’s Message: New Connections
November 2023New Connections
From its earliest days, the electric cooperative model has always been about serving the underserved. When Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC) was established in 1937, electricity wasn’t reaching rural areas.
At that point, electric lights had long been a common sight in major cities. But regions like ours were being left behind. Major power companies didn’t see a profit in running miles of line to serve just a handful of people whose homes could be miles apart.
It wasn’t until the Rural Electrification Act was passed that people in these rural areas were empowered to provide electricity for themselves. Job 1 for the earliest SVEC consumer members was going door to door convincing their neighbors how valuable an electric system built and owned by them could be.
All these years later, that investment has paid off immeasurably. Now, we have the exciting opportunity to once again serve a vital need in our community. This time, it’s all about the digital divide that exists between rural areas like ours and more urban ones with plentiful access to high-speed internet services. Closing that gap could prove just as transformative for our consumer-members as electricity was decades ago.
Last July, we officially announced our plans for Rapid Fiber Internet, a high-speed internet service powered by SVEC.
I’m proud to say that construction on our 100% fiber-to-the-home broadband network is well underway. In fact, some of our consumer-members located in Phase 1 of construction can now sign up to get Rapid Fiber Internet, and just the other day, we connected our 100th customer.
Of course, there is still a long way to go, and we know many of you have questions about how this project began and how it will progress. That’s why much of this month’s newsletter focuses on Rapid Fiber Internet. You’ll find information about the network construction process and where your home or business is in the project timeline.
I know many of you are eager to experience our internet service 1st-hand, and we’re working hard to make it available across our entire system as soon as possible.
If you want more information after reading this newsletter, I encourage you to visit RapidFiber.
Together, we have the opportunity to benefit our community in a whole new way, and I could not be more excited to share this moment with our wonderful members.
