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Escambia County Officially Approves Funding For EREC’s North Escambia Fiber Internet
March 3, 2023
Thursday night, the Escambia County Commission officially approved an agreement with Escambia River Electric Cooperative (EREC) with their partner firm Conexon Connect to provide high speed fiber internet to North Escambia.
The Connect, powered by Escambia River Electric Cooperative, network will span approximately 600 miles of fiber network in Escambia County reaching over 4,000 electric member locations with an estimated cost of $24 million.
EREC and Conexon will construct, own, operate and maintain the fiber network while providing broadband internet in areas of Escambia County within EREC’s electrical service area. In addition, EREC will provide broadband internet service and additional “dark” fiber (without internet service) for all county owned facilities within the EREC footprint for two years at no additional cost to the county.
Escambia County will contribute $6.3 million from American Rescue Plan funds. EREC will be responsible for the balance of the project cost.
The network is expected to be complete to 4,000 locations in EREC’s territory in Escambia County by mid-2024, with initial service availability targeted as early as the third quarter of 2023.
Three basic speed tiers will be available:
- 100 Mbps/100 Mbps — $49.95/month
- 1 Gig/1Gig — $79.95/month
- 2 Gig/2Gig — $99.95/month
Qualifying households can receive a $30 per month discount through the Affordable Connectivity Program.
The fiber will bring smart grid capabilities to EREC’s electrical infrastructure, including improved power outage response times, better load balancing, more efficient electricity delivery and more, according to the cooperative.
Conexon and Conexon Connect work with electric cooperatives to provide fiber broadband to their members. With its clients, the company has designed more than 200,000 miles of fiber, builds more than 50,000 miles of fiber annually and has connected more than 500,000 rural Americans to fiber to the home.
Comments
5 Responses to “Escambia County Officially Approves Funding For EREC’s North Escambia Fiber Internet”
“Is this going to include any of the rural areas in Santa rosa county that erec services electricity too??”
Escambia County funds will only be used to support fiber in Escambia County. EREC will begin with Escambia, but EREC officials have said they will be looking at a similar project in the future in Santa Rosa County.
Is this going to include any of the rural areas in Santa rosa county that erec services electricity too??
Man it would be awesome if EREC could magically have the ability to service everything including power service to areas such as cantonment, and molino. FPL prices are ridiculous. Especially when I see all the donations FPL are giving out to different charities. Guess who’s paying for the donations… we are!
So, what about Molino and those of us who aren’t in EREC’s footprint? We’re stuck with the same crappy internet and infrastructure as before. This does nothing for us. What say you Mr Barry?
This should be a great addition to our small, rural communities. A remote worker’s dream come true!