White River Connect expects to wrap internet project by 2026

Beau Jackson: White River Connect currently has around 5,000 subscribers.

Connie Pritchard: New internet service has saved Bonniebrook a lot of money.

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A multiyear, high-speed internet buildout by the fiber subsidiary of Branson-based White River Valley Electric Cooperative Inc. is on pace to finish under budget and ahead of schedule.

Originally estimated as a $260 million, five-year project, White River Connect CEO Beau Jackson said the work is moving quickly through the organization’s service territory of Christian, Douglas, Ozark, Stone and Taney counties. Construction started in June 2023 with Hendersonville, Tennessee-based ITG Communications LLC serving as general contractor along with Scott, Louisiana-based System Services Broadband Inc., he said. Hernden, Virginia-based National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative is the project’s construction manager and design partner.

White River Connect began signups, installations and service activation in April 2024.

“To date, we’ve completed over 3,700 miles of fiber out of the estimated 4,200 miles of total fiber build,” Jackson said. “We’re at around 5,000 subscribers signed up at this point.”

While the number fluctuates, Jackson estimated White River Connect is completing 125-150 installs and activations per week. The co-op offers business subscribers speeds above 1 gigabit for data uploads and downloads to meet future bandwidth demand. Speeds are up to 1 gigabit for residential services.

“We’re ahead of schedule and also under budget,” he said. “We expect to complete our original scope by the second quarter of next year.”

The cooperative was awarded nearly $47.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds from the Missouri Department of Economic Development in 2023 for the project, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. It was part of $261 million the DED announced through the ARPA Broadband Infrastructure Grant Program. Community support also came from Ozark, Stone and Taney counties, which collectively committed roughly $9 million of county ARPA funding toward the broadband buildout.

Jackson said the remainder of the project is being funded by the cooperative through grants and loans from an undisclosed lending institution.

“It’s kind of a moving target, but we know we’re going to come out far less than that,” he said of the previous $260 million estimate, declining to provide a new figure. “The way I view it, it is going to help the taxpayers because of our efforts in cutting costs and building out for less than what we originally estimated.”

To determine the need for rural internet, White River Valley conducted research in 2021 and 2022, including a feasibility study and membership survey, according to past reporting. Nearly 8,000 members responded to the survey, with 91% indicating interest in the co-op providing internet services to their areas. Only 13% reported having reliable internet speeds over 25 megabits per second for uploads and 3 Mbps for downloads.

Officials say the survey demonstrated demand for the co-op to move forward. The cooperative’s board of directors approved the project in a July 2022 strategic planning meeting.

White River’s project follows the 2023 completion of a nearly $150 million multiyear fiber expansion project by City Utilities of Springfield, which brought gigabit internet to over 118,000 home and business addresses in the Queen City.

Meeting needs
White River Connect originally established a five-year buildout. However, Jackson said the timeline was an estimate to accommodate for challenges such as the terrain in its service area and acquisition of the required permitting.

“We have a lot of creeks and lakes and a lot of rock, and you really don’t know,” he said of the project length. “We thought five years would be a reasonable timeframe.”

Work started in summer 2023 near the co-op’s headquarters in Taney County, as Jackson said that area was seen as the most effective and efficient area to begin in terms of logistics. Portions of Ava, Sparta and Spokane are the primary areas where internet installation and activation still to occur, according to the White River Connect website.

“We try the best we can to get services turned up where the biggest need is, which is in the rural areas, especially east in our territory where they had essentially nothing,” he said, adding eastern Taney and Ozark counties now have available service from White River Connect. 

White River Connect’s fiber internet prices for businesses range $105-$355 per month, while monthly residential services range $70-$100, according to its website.

Walnut Shade is among Taney County communities that now have access to high-speed internet, said Connie Pritchard, president of the Bonniebrook Historical Society. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit maintains the Bonniebrook Home and Museum, which displays the artwork of famed artist and Kewpie doll creator Rose O’Neill.

Pritchard said the town’s only option for years was CenturyTel, which later became CenturyLink. Brightspeed LLC subsequently took over internet service from CenturyLink.

“It was dial-up. It was very slow and very expensive,” she said, noting the museum is located in a valley roughly nine miles north of Branson.

The tour home has a live-in caretaker apartment, which had internet and a landline. Brightspeed was charging $109 per month for those services. Internet and phone systems for the visitor center were over $300 per month. Bonniebrook made the switch to White River Connect last fall after learning in early 2024 the company was adding service in Walnut Shade.

“We were excited to see that there was a different option coming our way,” she said. “We had no idea what the cost would be once it got out this way. But it has saved us a tremendous amount of money.”

The bill has dropped to $144.90 per month with White River Connect, Pritchard said. That price includes internet and phone service for the caretaker’s apartment and internet for the visitor’s center.

“The speed on the internet is super,” she said, adding the faster service allowed the nonprofit to upgrade its machine which processes debit and credit card payments. “I can’t say enough good things about them.”

Under consideration
While White River Connect is looking to wrap the project within its service area next year, Jackson said its expansion work might not be complete if additional federal funding is approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Jackson said the cooperative is participating in the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment funding program and still going through the application process. That process hopefully will be complete before year’s end, he said. The co-op’s board also will have to approve the funding and expansion work.

“Depending on the final results of that, it can lead us to expanding outside of our service territory,” he said, declining to disclose the total funding sought.

BEAD is a $42.5 billion federal grant program that aims to connect every American to high-speed internet by funding partnerships to build infrastructure, according to the NTIA.

Jackson said building a subscriber base for a new service can take time. Still, he’s pleased with the results and is hopeful to reach 20,000 subscribers within the next four years.

“Once you have the service available, you’re going to have those who are going to sign up right away and then you’re going to have some, like businesses, that are in contracts,” he said. “So, they may wait until the contracts are up before switching to us. I think we’re meeting our expectations.”