Keeping Promises

Published by Terry Rubenthaler on Monday, February 3, 2025 in Internet

Remember those lessons we learned in elementary school? Two wrongs don’t make a right. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. The best promise is a kept promise. Honesty is the best policy.

I sure do. Those lessons still guide me both in my personal life and at MEC. It’s extremely important to me that when MEC says we are going to do something, we do it.

Our fiber project is a huge example of this. In 2015, we set out on a course to change lives in southern Michigan, northern Indiana, and Ohio by bringing fiber internet broadband to all of our electric customers. That project was completed in 2021. A promise kept.

We quickly learned that many of our neighbors were also unserved and desperate for this critical utility. Like you, they had been overlooked by other providers for years. We knew we had to try something to help these people.

We began looking for funding programs and grants. One of those programs was the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). It was intended to invest $20 billion to bring reliable, high-speed internet throughout rural America. We knew it was an incredible opportunity, so we set out on a course to plan a massive expansion that would more than double our footprint. We did our due diligence first though. Before we said, “Let’s do this,” we said, “Can we do this?” We sent crews out into the field to literally get the lay of the land to determine who wasn’t served and if the area was feasible for the project. We developed a business plan and bid on the addresses we knew we could serve. We didn’t win all areas we wanted. There were other providers that outbid us, but at least those people would still get internet service, or so they thought.

In 2020, we were awarded $37 million from RDOF to bring fiber internet to over 33,000 rural customers. We did not take our commitment lightly. We had to add employees, contractors, and inventory to make this happen. To date, we’ve built fiber to over 22,000 residents and businesses thanks to RDOF, and we will complete the rest by the end of 2026. Seems like a no-brainer, right? Another promise kept.

However, not everyone has been that fortunate. Some of the other providers who also received RDOF funding defaulted due to their inability to meet RDOF’s obligations. Reasons like “costs have gone up” ring hollow to the customers who were expecting broadband service by now. Those rural residents are, once again, stuck without access to this modern necessity. In fact, we actually had to turn away people who wanted MEC fiber because they were supposed to be served by other providers’ RDOF projects. That sounds like a broken promise to me.

Now, the next big grant opportunity is beginning. The Michigan High Speed Internet (MIHI) office has just released the maps for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. Fortunately for the folks that were in the defaulted areas, their areas are included in this program. As we consider further internet expansion using BEAD funds, I want you to know that we will continue to evaluate the opportunities thoroughly to determine if it makes sense for MEC. We will again do our due diligence and develop a business plan that ensures feasibility. We will make sure it fits with our vision to build vibrant, relevant, sustainable rural communities. Our electric customers are the foundation of who we are, and we’ll never lose sight of that. We won’t make a promise we can’t keep because the life lessons we learned in 2nd grade are still very much with us.