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Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
Harrison County, Texas Strikes Partnership With Etex Telephone Cooperative
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on
Harrison County, Texas officials say they’re poised to use the county’s remaining Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds to strike a fiber expansion partnership with Etex Communications, a subsidiary of the locally-owned Etex Telephone Cooperative.
The Harrison County Commissioners Court says it’s putting the finishing touches on a $4.5 million public-public partnership with Etex that will help deliver fiber access to the Western end of the heavily underserved Texas county with the help of $1.5 million in federal ARPA funds.
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ARPA Funds To The Rescue
Etex Telephone Cooperative was originally formed in 1952 to meet the communication needs of people living in rural northeast Texas. Beginning with 743 members when the co-op was first created, the provider now services more than 12,600 members scattered across a service territory of 710 square miles of rural East Texas.
“Internet is a big issue. It’s almost as fundamental as water and electricity. You gotta have it,” Harrison County Judge Chad Sims tells The Marshall News Messenger. “It is an essential thing. So we’re happy to partner with ETEX.”
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Harrison County received $13 million in ARPA funding, which has greater flexibility than looming BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) infrastructure bill funding. After spending $11.5 million of those funds, the county began eyeing the remaining $1.5 million to fund fiber expansion into underserved and unserved parts of the county.
“[ARPA funding] can only be used on water and sewer, broadband or COVID expenses,” Sims said. “We don’t have any COVID expenses. The county doesn’t operate in water supplies. Although we did give $1.5 million to our water supply corporations, our community water systems, we don’t have any garbage collections so that just leaves the broadband expansion.”
Municipalities that received ARPA funds have until the end of the year not just to budget remaining ARPA funds, but to obligate (have signed contracts) them, or they risk losing those funds forever. Once obligated, municipalities, tribes, and other ARPA recipients have until the end of 2026 to completely spend all the money they’ve budgeted and obligated.
‘Give It To Co-Ops’
The total number of passings that will come from the county’s partnership with Henderson-based Etex is still being hashed out, but the cooperative estimates they’ll finance $3 million of a $4.5 million project to expand fiber to as many locations as possible, with construction slated to begin as soon as this month.
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“We’ve spoken with a number of Internet companies, broadband companies, and spoke at length with the state broadband office,” Sims said. “The state’s suggestion was not to give the money to a private broadband or Internet company, but to give it to co-ops.”
Etex subscribers are currently being offered four service tier options: 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) service for $63/month; 250 Mbps for $85/month; 500 Mbps service for $100/month;a gig speed connection for $134/month. All of the service packages include WiFi 6 routers; network security and virus protection; and no data caps.
Locally-owned coops tend to be more responsive to community needs since they’re owned by locals and a literal part of the communities they serve. Many electrical-based coops have also leveraged their century-old experience at rural electrification to focus on expanding broadband to residents overlooked by large, regional telecom monopolies.
Harrison County says the Eastern part of the county is still waiting for Charter Communications to follow through on an RDOF (Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) obligation to bring broadband service to an additional 5,200 county locations, as Texas is also poised to receive an additional $3.3 billion in broadband subsidies courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill.
Header image of Etex Communications employees courtesy of Etex Communications website
Inline image of Harrison County Courthouse courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Etex Communications service territory map courtesy of Etex Communications website
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