Conexon Connect, the ISP arm of fiber broadband builder Conexon, says it has completed its new fiber build in Cairo, Georgia in close collaboration with Grady Electrical Membership Corporation (EMC).
The finished network brings affordable fiber access to 158,000 homes and businesses across the state, including Cairo (population 10,054).
It’s Conexon Connect’s seventh completed broadband fiber to the home project in Georgia and twelfth completed broadband network overall since the ISP was created in 2021.
In January of 2023 Grady EMC was awarded a $9.3 million grant made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Grady announced its partnership with Conexon in March of 2023.
Grady EMC is technically the statewide trade association that serves Georgia’s 41 electric membership corporations. As we’re seeing across the country, these cooperatives are leveraging their century-old experience with rural electrification to push fiber into many rural areas long neglected by dominant regional telecom monopolies.
“This project truly shows what's possible when a community comes together with a shared vision for a brighter, more connected future,” Grady EMC CEO John Long said in a statement.
Grady will be seeking additional funding opportunities to extend affordable fiber access to the cooperative’s 13,000 members across Grady, Decatur and Thomas counties.
While prices often vary depending on the market, Conexon Connect offers locals three tiers of service: symmetrical 100 megabit per second (Mbps) tier; symmetrical gig speed service; and a symmetrical 2.5 Gbps tier.
Conexon was initially known for rural fiber-optic network design and construction, but launched its own last mile public facing retail ISP, Conexon Connect, in 2021.
Conexon Connect has also been preliminarily awarded $19.9 million of Georgia’s looming $1.3 billion in BEAD (Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment) grants made possible by the 2021 infrastructure law. Pending NTIA approval, that deployment should bring fiber to an additional 6,860 locations.
Conexon co-CEO Jonathan Chambers recently spoke with ILSR’s Christopher Mitchell about the challenges of rural broadband deployment in Episode 660 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast.
Inline image of Cairo, Georgia welcome sign courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
