{"id":34320,"date":"2022-07-01T07:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T14:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/?p=34320"},"modified":"2022-06-30T08:25:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T15:25:29","slug":"bringing-high-speed-fiber-where-no-one-else-will-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/bringing-high-speed-fiber-where-no-one-else-will-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing High-Speed Fiber Where No One Else Will Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ted Case<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Terry Adams, owner of Barron\u2019s Home Furnishings in Brookings, educates his team on new technologies to better serve customers. The company was the first to receive service from Beacon Broadband. Photos by Kelsey Bozeman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

History sometimes repeats itself.<\/p>\n

In 1939, Ivan Laird could not get electricity to his farm in Sitkum, a small town 45 miles east of Coos Bay on the Oregon Coast. Like millions of rural Americans, Laird was living a far different life than those in cities.<\/p>\n

It was a tale of 2 Americas: one with the modern conveniences made possible because of electricity and one that was not far different than those that toiled in the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n

Laird recognized that for-profit electric providers were unlikely to serve remote areas of Oregon\u2019s south coast and decided to do something about it. He organized a group of neighbors to establish what would become Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative, bringing electricity to south coast residents who had all but given up hope of having it.<\/p>\n

Today, there is another gaping divide between rural and urban America that has ramifications for the descendants of those who electrified this nation.<\/p>\n

Ivan\u2019s grandson, David, lives in the historic family home in Sitkum and cannot get reliable high-speed internet service. Like many others on Oregon\u2019s south coast, David is counting on the local electric cooperative to again transform the area.<\/p>\n

On May 2, Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative\u2019s subsidiary, Beacon Broadband, flipped the switch on its new broadband network at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Brookings. The cooperative joined approximately 200 electric cooperatives nationwide that are providing or building out broadband.<\/p>\n

The ceremony represented a culmination of more than 3 years of work by Coos-Curry Electric, Beacon Broadband and its partners to build the first sections of the network that will be available to all CCEC members and some neighboring areas\u2014 approximately 19,000 homes and businesses in Coos and Curry counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeacon Broadband will bridge the digital divide that exists right here in Curry and rural Coos counties,\u201d said Pete Radabaugh, Beacon Broadband\u2019s board president. \u201cIt will help bring economic, educational, and social vitality to the south coast for decades to come, along with the same quality, reliability, and affordability we get from the co-op.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Ina Ruth, a commercial crabbing vessel, arrives at the Port of Brookings-Harbor. Over the next few years, Oregon’s southern coast will be fully connected to high-speed broadband.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barron\u2019s Home Furnishings in Brookings has been in business since 1994. It was the first business member to receive broadband service from Beacon Broadband. Owner Terry Adams plans to integrate interactive digital signage, visual displays and informational kiosks into his business\u2014something he could not have done without high-speed fiber broadband.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadband allows us to take advantage of integrating new technologies into our business,\u201d Adams said. \u201cConnecting to Beacon Broadband\u2019s service opens up the doors for rural communities like Brookings to gain access to more advanced technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few Coos-Curry members are as excited to get broadband than those in the small, remote town of Arago. The town has never been served by traditional internet, relying instead on a patchwork of fixed wireless solutions, cellphones and satellite.<\/p>\n

Arago resident Jerek Hodge anxiously awaits the speed and reliability of a fiber network. He is one of 1,800 people who have preregistered for Beacon services.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeacon Broadband will make it possible to work from home,\u201d Hodge said. \u201cWe have homeschooled our 5 children and have found it difficult to download videos with the fixed bandwidth earlier providers have offered. We bought internet hotspots. We just make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like the advent of the electric co-op in the 1930s and \u201940s, the broadband rollout will not happen overnight. However, Beacon Broadband has initiated a 3-year fiber-to-the-home construction plan.<\/p>\n

When complete, the company will offer access to some of the fastest symmetrical upload\/download multi-gigabit internet capabilities in the nation. The network is being built with redundant paths to ensure customers stay connected.<\/p>\n

The key to success, however, is Coos-Curry\u2019s local connection that started more than 80 years ago with Ivan Laird\u2019s bold vision of electrifying the south coast. That is no less true today with Beacon Broadband, using the same motivation as the co-op\u2019s founder: providing an essential service because no one else would.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ted Case History sometimes repeats itself. In 1939, Ivan Laird could not get electricity to his farm in Sitkum, a small town 45 miles east of Coos Bay on the Oregon Coast. Like millions of rural Americans, Laird was living a far different life than those in cities. It was a tale of 2 […]\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":34322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34320"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34325,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34320\/revisions\/34325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}