From the Top with CEO Patrick Grace

It's been one year since OEC Fiber opened for business, and what a year it has been. Thousands of active subscribers, hundreds of miles of fiber line in place, one incredibly hard-working team, and we're only beginning.

At press time, we just crossed the 7,000 subscriber mark — what a fantastic feat. We are moving at speeds unheard of in the co-op broadband world, and it's all thanks to you.

The trend of electric cooperatives stepping up to provide broadband to our rural consumers has picked up a lot of momentum in the last few years. Thanks to the national associations working to secure federal funding, electric co-ops across the nation are able to be the internet source rural communities so desperately need.

I recently spoke with CNET for an article titled Electric Cooperatives Could be the Key to Solving the Rural Digital Divide along with a co-op manager in Virginia, and it's fascinating to see the same struggles that exist in other states and how their co-ops are taking on the responsibility of taking broadband where no one else will.

OEC's service area is pretty urban and populated compared to the typical rural electric co-op, which is why we were surprised when we discovered those living a couple of miles from our most populous areas had little to no internet access. We realized our communities couldn't expect to do business, teach our kids, access telemedicine or take advantage of all kinds of other things without access to the internet, so we stepped in.

Our earliest members did the exact same thing in the mid-1930s when they saw their urban counterparts living with electricity and no company willing to bring it to them. It's just what we do as a co-op. We see a need and find a way to fill it.

Thank you for walking alongside us and supporting our efforts to bring high-speed internet where no one else will right here in central Oklahoma.