Kiwanians learn about 4-County’s new FASTNET service
Ever since 4-County Electric started its broadband efforts in last fall with its CARES Act pilot projects, it has created a fiber Internet service from scratch with nearly seven million feet of fiber hung and over 1,650 customers in some of the most undeserved areas.
FASTNET is 4-County’s telecommunications subsidiary which will provide high-speed fiber broadband to commercial and residential members.
On Tuesday, the Kiwanis Club of Starkville was visited by the 4-County General Manager and CEO, Brian Clark, along with their Director of Marketing and Public Relations, Jon Turner, to tell the Kiwanians about what this service will do to enhance the quality of life for residents of Oktibbeha County and the surrounding areas 4-County covers.
“We are very, very excited about this. We’ve kind of been on the fence on whether we were going to do this because there are other companies out there who do this for a living: AT&T, C-spire, Maxxsouth, the competition is endless. We didn’t know anything about broadband. It is a quite a major undertaking when you talk about finances, we paid about $110 million to bring this project to fruition,” said Turner. “So, you can see that it gave us pause. We weren’t sure we wanted to jump off in that, but Brian and the board along with the executive staff did their due diligence. That act came through came through, and they gave us about $4.5 million dollars to get started on the CARES Act, so that got us started in the rural areas.”
Turner said the project started in western Clay County, northeast Choctaw County, and in northern Noxubee County, which Turner said are some of the most underserved areas.
“Every day, we see how much we impact those folks with the Internet. Those of you who had satellite service in the past, you understand how frustrating and how slow that service can be. Covid showed us how important it was to be connected these days,” said Turner. “It’s not just a luxury anymore, it’s starting to be like electricity in the sense that it has become a necessity to do the things in the world that you want to do.”
Turner said the project has been progressing very well and it could reach total completion by the spring of 2024.
“Right now, we’ve got about seven and a half million feet of fiber in the air, and we have about a little under 1,700 customers hooked up,” said Turner. “If you’ve seen our trucks, we are out there going, and we plan on having the entire territory served in about four years. So, we started in mid-summer last year, and we hope to be done by spring of 2024. We might be finished sooner than that because we are really pushing, and it is coming together quite nicely.”
For more information about 4-County’s FASTNET service, you can visit the project’s website at www.4cfastnet.com.