The co-ops that electrified Depression-era farms are now building rural internet

Across the rural US, more than 100 cooperatives, first launched to provide electric and telephone services as far back as the 1930s, are now laying miles of fiber optic cable to connect their members to high-speed internet. Many started building their own networks after failing to convince established internet service providers to cover their communities. But while rural fiber optic networks have spread swiftly over the past five years, their progress has been uneven. In North Dakota, for example, fiber optic co-ops cover 82% of the state’s landmass, while Nevada has just one co-op. And in the states where the utilities do exist, they tend to serve the whitest communities. “There are co-ops that serve predominantly Black families,” said Christopher Mitchell, who studies local broadband networks with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “But those co-ops are not doing fiber to the home.” The fiber business model, he explained, generally relies on 50-60% of members signing up to pay $50 a month or more for internet service. “If you look at the kind of poverty we see in the rural Black community, I don’t think we can forecast that level of subscription,” he said.