DE Fastlink celebrates 10,000 subscribers | Free News
When DE Fastlink was established, General Manager Randy Smith and the board expected to hit the 10,000-subscriber mark. What they didn’t expect was for it to happen so fast. They celebrated that milestone on Thursday — about 18 months ahead of when their feasibility study said it would happen.
And it was accomplished amid a pandemic, supply-chain shortages and all sorts of other obstacles, Smith told a roomful of people who gathered at Dixie Electric Power Association for the celebration.
“We’ve been drinking from a fire hose since this started,” Smith said.
He recapped the timeline, from when the state legislature passed the Broadband Enabling Act on Jan. 31, 2019 to allow electric co-ops to get into the internet business to the May 12, 2020 vote by the Dixie Electric board to move forward. The subsidiary DE Fastlink was incorporated in August 2020 and, after it was incorporated, fiber construction began on Oct. 21, 2020.
Since that time, 3,223 miles of fiber have been installed and 10,000 customers are connected, with the final phase of fiber and availability forecast to be finished this summer. That means service will be available to all Dixie Electric members in less than three years, Smith said.
“It’s pretty remarkable,” he said. “We essentially started a new company.”
And it all happened during trying times, but the contractors and subcontractors “kept moving forward” with what they could do, Smith said. But the celebration was mostly a thank you for the employees who “sacrificed a lot of time, sleep and sanity” to make DE Fastlink a success, he said.
Alicia Walker of the DE Fastlink Board of Managers said she was proud that the company could “bridge the digital gap” for rural areas in the community. The first customer who was connected, Margarett Boyd of Ovett, talked about just how important that was for her and her 92-year-old mother and home-schooled special-needs 16-year-old son to be able to move back to the old family home. She works from home and is a teacher at Camp Shelby and her mother has to use telehealth, security and other services that require connectivity.
Margarett Boyd, DE Fastlink's first subscriber, talks to the crowd.
“We couldn’t be home without it, so thank you,” Boyd said, adding that there’s “never a glitch, it works seamlessly and we have fast, wonderful customer service at a reasonable price.”
Mississippi Public Service Commission Chairman Dane Maxwell said, “This was our time in history to make a difference.” He compared it to points in history when rail service, power lines and phone lines were installed around the country.
“In under three years, here we are with over 10,000 subscribers ... it’s unimaginable,” he said. “You are rock stars!”
In July 2020, CARES Act funding of $65 million was provided for co-op broadband, and Dixie Electric received $3.675 million to get started. It’s a good example of “public and private working together” for a project that benefits “all people,” Maxwell said. “I’m proud of that.”
COVID-19 brought to light the importance of the need for connectivity during times of school and workplace shutdowns, Maxwell said.
“DE Fastlink should be one of the leaders that other (co-ops) follow,” he said.
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