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BROADBAND COMMUNITIES
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www.broadbandcommunities.com
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
FTTH DEPLOYMENT
Kentucky's 'Gigabit Hollers'
PRTC's full fber buildout ofers new hope to an impoverished region of Kentucky.
By Masha Zager / Broadband Communities
P
eoples Rural Telephone Cooperative
(PRTC) has served Jackson County
and Owsley County in Appalachian
Kentucky since 1950. Te two counties
together have a population of about 18,000,
and the biggest town has 900 people. In
terms of income, these counties are in the
bottom percentile of all U.S. counties,
and unemployment rates are high. "It's
a beautiful place, and it has wonderful
people," says CEO Keith Gabbard. "My
mission is to make it a better place to live."
Gabbard has pursued that mission by
building out fber to the home throughout
PRTC's entire service area, beginning in
2008. In addition to investing its own funds,
PRTC made use of Rural Utilities Service
funding, including a $17.5 million grant
through the broadband stimulus program. "Te
ARR A program and the grant money really
helped," Gabbard says. "Tey made it possible."
Money wasn't the only challenge. To pull
fber cable through rough terrain where vehicles
could not easily travel, contractors had to rely
on mules, following an old Kentucky tradition.
In 2015, the buildout was completed. Fiber
now passes every home and business in the
service area – even the most remote – and about
60 percent of co-op members are connected to
fber broadband services. However, fnishing
construction is only the beginning of the larger
project of using the network for the betterment
of Jackson and Owsley counties. Despite having
been brought up, as Gabbard puts it, "not to
brag on yourself," he is now busy letting the
world know what PRTC has done.
Keith Gabbard, CEO of Peoples Rural Telephone
Cooperative, at the event celebrating the launch of
gigabit service
Keith Gabbard will speak about
broadband and economic
development at the
2016 BroadBand Communities
s
ummit , April 5–7 in Austin.
h G b b d i l l k b