Powerline Press
NEWSLETTER
A Supplement of Oklahoma Living Published by Lake Region Electric Cooperative for its members.
December January 2023 2019
Closing the Digital Divide The Need For Reliable, Fast Internet is Both an Urban and Rural Issue.
Infrastructure investments in broadband growth are critical to the local economy that relies on the internet to access information, customers, and services to support operations. Broadband access is critical to supporting small businesses, particularly in rural and underserved communities. This is why Lake Region Electric Cooperative (LREC) has stepped up to the plate to build fiber optic broadband where no one else was willing to build, similar to rural electrification 80 years ago. Rachel Dallis, Attorney at Law, started her law office in 2018 in downtown Tahlequah before moving to her current location near the Cherokee County Courthouse in 2020. “I knew how great Lake Region fiber internet was because I had it at home for several years outside of Hulbert. When I first opened my business in Tahlequah, I had AT&T, and it was very unreliable; it would go out on rainy days, and the speeds were nowhere comparable to Lake Region,” said Rachel. Lake Region is gaining popularity as a fast, reliable internet provider in many rural areas and towns inside of their electricity grid, and we are witnessing daily requests for internet service in larger communities. A faster, more reliable technology internet provider is still needed in many communities with other subpar internet service providers (ISPs). Lake Region is weighing the cost of building mainline infrastructure into Tahlequah’s dense population to pick up many customers per mile of line to help offset the cost of continuing to build fiber optic lines into the rural, less populated territory.
“I wasn’t expecting Tahlequah not to have fast, reliable internet for my business when I first opened. Our VoIP phone system, calendars, emails, e-filing software, (and the list goes on), needed a reliable, fast internet connection for my new business to be successful,” stated Rachel. Tahlequah is no small town. It is home to a regional public university, two large hospitals, and home of the Cherokee Nation headquarters. Many residents and businesses that call Tahlequah home still lack access to fast, reliable, fiber optic internet technology. The broadband infrastructure movement across the nation and all the funding coming from the government must also consider towns like Tahlequah, lacking this critical infrastructure for the future. “We couldn’t do anything when the internet was down with our previous provider, and during the COVID years, we did many of our Digital Divide continues on next page