Conexon

Congratulations to South Central Connect, LLC for installing a fiber hut at the Southfork location! We are excited to watch your FTTH journey!

Congratulations to Prince George Electric Cooperative and its fiber subsidiary RURALBAND on receiving more than $6 million from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to continue to provide fiber internet to its Virginia communities! Read more here: http://bit.ly/RURALBANDRDOF

"History in the making," Juli Orme, GM of Cookson Hills Electric Cooperative, called Cookson Hills Connect's first board meeting. Congratulations, and thank you for your dedication to bringing fiber-to-the-home to 100% of your members! We are excited to be a part of your journey.

Congratulations to Southwest Arkansas Electric Cooperative for receiving $53 million through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to build a fiber-to-the-home network for 100% of its members! Read more here http://bit.ly/SouthwestArkansas

Fix the RDOF now. Please read the latest blog from Conexon Partner Jonathan Chambers on our website by clicking here: http://bit.ly/FixRDOFnow

We are excited to announce the launch of Conexon's turnkey marketing services, including the Conexon Marketing Hub! This proprietary software platform is specifically designed for cooperatives to provide all the resources needed to effectively market FTTH service. In addition to the Marketing Hub, Conexon’s services include a complimentary specially-designed member preregistration tool, a team of cooperative marketing support managers, and logo, branding, and website design... services "For Cookson Hills’ board and employees, broadband is not a new concept. However, learning to build a broadband program from the ground up is a new concept, Juli Orme, GM of Oklahoma’s Cookson Hills Electric Cooperative, Inc. and fiber entity Cookson Hills Connect, said. Conexon has proven to us that its marketing team has experience and expertise that our team can draw from. Instead of jumping in head first, we are utilizing this opportunity to learn from Conexon’s team, which will help us become more knowledgeable in this field. This collaboration will also allow us to become stronger to better assist our future customers when they need us the most." To learn more about Conexon's marketing services please visit our website: https://bit.ly/ConexonMarketingHub

Introducing Cooperative Stories! Join us as we speak to cooperative leaders about their fiber-to-the-home journey. Today we learn about how CARES Act funding helped launch fiber-to-the-home with Natchez Trace Electric Power Association General Manager, Shawn Edmondson. You can learn more about NTSpark by checking out their case study on our website: https://bit.ly/CSNTSpark

Our cooperative clients hit many major milestones throughout their fiber-to-the-home journeys. To follow along with all of our clients' milestones, check out Conexon's website: https://bit.ly/Co-opMilestones

Introducing, Conexon Stories! Each episode is a short interview about Conexon. This week we interview partners Jonathan Chambers and Randy Klindt about why they founded Conexon. To learn more about Conexon's story, visit our website: https://www.conexon.us/

Conexon delivers full-service NOC, Engineering, and Call Center Support for rural electric cooperatives deploying fiber to the home. The Kansas City-based Call Center staff helps co-ops ensure a positive experience and expert support for their subscribers. Electric co-ops are often dependent on third-party call centers that don’t understand the nature of their business, and often can’t go beyond answering a call, said Andy Burger, Conexon VP of Operations. We have a very proficient staff, some of whom have built and/or operated fiber networks and call centers for over a decade. They possess specific expertise for efficient resolution while maintaining the highest level of customer satisfaction. To learn more, please visit our website: https://bit.ly/NOCCall

The board of Southwest Arkansas Electric Cooperative has named Dion Cooper as its new President and CEO. Congratulations Dion!

"This video says it all, we had a great day working together with M-Pulse Fiber crews and Conexon Project Manager Nick, to cross a tricky river with barge traffic, 125 ft above the ground and water, spanning 1400 ft the Tombigbee Waterway in Amory, Mississippi." - Gary Ervin, Executive Chairman, Ervin Cable Construction LLC. Shoutout to Hunter Films for the awesome video!

Check out this new video about the history of Conexon. Conexon Partner Randy Klindt is considered an electric cooperative broadband pioneer with over 20 years of experience and is widely credited for architecting the most efficient, affordable, and sustainable fiber-to-the-home design in use by electric co-ops today. Partner Jonathan Chambers has over 25 years of telecommunications regulatory and federal funding experience and spearheaded the largest, most successful biddin...g consortium in the FCC’s history. Together they have established Conexon as the leading end-to-end solutions provider for electric cooperatives serving their members and communities with fiber internet. To learn more about Conexon, visit our website: conexon.us

We are honored to receive @TheCalixNetwork 's Partner of the Year Award at the ConneXions event last week. Thank you for your partnership and for helping us assist electric cooperatives in their fiber-to-the-home journey. Click here for more information: http://bit.ly/Conexon

Congratulations to Firefly Fiber Broadband which will expand its fiber network with the help of CARES Act funding. To read more about the project, click here: https://bit.ly/3oOqlBE

We are proud to showcase another of our Groundbreaker electric cooperative clients!! The Facebook page captured it all: Rural east Mississippians are desperate for high-speed broadband internet services. A 4,600-member Facebook page created last March by residents in East Mississippi Electric Power Association (EMEPA) service territory posted survey results on its members’ experience with internet access. The results were overwhelmingly negative, with a whopping 82 perce...nt of respondents unhappy with what little service they had. East Mississippi EPA is answering that challenge and meeting the needs of members with a FTTH network through fiber entity East Mississippi Connect. Thanks to CARES Act money, the EPA was able to begin construction on Phase 1 of its project in August of 2020,. When EMEPA completes Phase 1 of its project in September 2021, broadband internet access will be available to 3,559 homes along 463.5 miles of fiber. To read more about East Mississippi Connect, click the link to the case study here: http://bit.ly/EMConnect

Congratulations to GoSEMO Fiber for hitting the 5K subscriber milestone! We are proud of you for this accomplishment! Thank you for your commitment to bring high-speed fiber internet to 100% of your membership.

We are excited to be able to showcase another Conexon Groundbreaker cooperative client! Coast Electric Power Association’s broadband journey started well before coronavirus, in 2018 when a coalition of Mississippi electric power associations (EPAs) came together to lobby for legislative changes to be able to provide rural broadband service in the state. At that time, leaders thought the 2020 legislative session was the most realistic prospect for change. Instead, the legisla...tion was presented in January 2019 and passed within weeks an unprecedented time span. But while COVID-19 exposed the deficiencies of Internet accessibility in the region, it has also offered Coast Electric an opportunity to fast-track its broadband start by leveraging resources and grants from the state government who recognize the essential need for high-speed Internet. Read more about Coast EPA’s case study by visiting our website: https://bit.ly/CoastConnectFiber

Congratulations to NTSpark which installed their fiber hut last week! We at Conexon are excited to watch your FTTH journey!

Randy Klindt was recently interviewed by Freethink about how electric cooperatives are helping close the digital divide. "If people didn't know it before (COVID-19): broadband is now a necessity," says Randy Klindt, founder of Conexon. He launched the consulting company about five years ago to assist rural electric cooperatives with fiber optics. He says that the electric co-ops already serve rural areas, dead-end roads, and farmland. They cover 2/3rds of the country's landm...ass with over two million miles of electric distribution line. It is a natural solution for them also to provide broadband. Click here to read the article: https://www.freethink.com/articles/rural-broadband-network

From helping provide a reliable connection for poultry farmers and supporting a tech repair business, to filling the high-speed service void when a community’s provider exited, Ozarks Electric Cooperative’s broadband subsidiary is fulfilling its mission of making lives and communities better. As a co-op, we believe in exploring ways to ensure rural living remains a viable economic and lifestyle option, said Mitchell Johnson, Ozarks Electric Cooperative president, and CEO. ...And just as electricity was in the ’30s and ’40s, broadband is now the critical community service rural Americans need and deserve to continue living where they want to live. We’re very gratified with the success we’ve experienced, and attribute it directly to our co-op commitment of making sure people have affordable access to all of the education, economic, and lifestyle benefits world-class broadband brings. To learn more about how OzarksGo is blazing the FTTH trail, click here: http://bit.ly/OzarksGo

Conexon is always here to support our fiber friends and clients. We are with you every step of the way in your FTTH journey. "It's partners and friends in the fiber world like Randy Klindt over at Conexon who texts ya and says "you need anything call me. I'll do whatever you need to get your subscribers back online...you aren't in this alone." You too Renee Robinson! Thank you!" - David Goodspeed, OEC Fiber