As Work Begins In Escambia County, EREC Announces Fiber Internet Also Coming To Santa Rosa

April 20, 2023

As Escambia River Electric Cooperative begins preliminary work for a fiber internet buildout in North Escambia, the member owned cooperative announced Wednesday their high speed internet service is also coming to Santa Rosa County.

“With the announcement of the partnership, we also stated our plans to provide broadband to Escambia County members with funding assistance from the county,” said Ryan Campbell, CEO of EREC. “We heard a resounding need for broadband from our Santa Rosa County members when we made that announcement. It will take a lot of planning and preparation to serve both counties, but in the end, we will be able to offer broadband to all EREC members.”

The project across both counties is projected to cost $36 million.

In March, the Escambia County Commission voted to contribute $6.3 million from American Rescue Plan funds toward a network that will span approximately 600 miles of fiber in Escambia County, reaching over 4,000 EREC member locations.

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 Escambia County owned facilities within the EREC footprint for two years at no additional cost to the county.

Campbell said the buildout in Escambia County will happen first. But as a particular segment of the project is completed, work will begin in a phased approach in Santa Rosa County. For instance, when the engineering work is done in Escambia, the engineers will move to Santa Rosa County as the next step in network construction continues in Escambia.

Survey work in Escambia County got underway in February, and, just this week, the necessary utility pole replacements began.

The network is expected to be complete in Escambia County by mid-2024, with initial service availability targeted as early as the third quarter of 2023.

Three basic speed tiers have been announced:

  • 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

Comments

2 Responses to “As Work Begins In Escambia County, EREC Announces Fiber Internet Also Coming To Santa Rosa”

  1. Eric M on April 20th, 2023 10:13 am

    @Molino, you are 100% correct. Molino is so sparse, there is no economic advantage (profit) for anyone to offer service here. I live off 97, the only options are dial up, starlink or tmobile. I personally use tmobile. I would use starlink, but I’ve been on a wait list for about 18 months … our equipment was sent to Ukraine :(

  2. Molino on April 20th, 2023 8:29 am

    Is it safe to say that if you don’t have EREC for electricity, you won’t be on their Internet grid?

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News