I have been looking forward to writing this column for quite a while and I’m thrilled to share some exciting news with you – we are officially launching Trico Fiber, and we are going to be bringing fiber internet service directly to our Members’ homes and businesses. Over the next few months there will be a lot more to come on the neighborhoods that will be connected first, the internet packages that will be available to choose from, and the timeline for the build. For now, I want to share the good news and explain how we arrived at this exciting decision.
As you know, this didn’t happen overnight. Your Trico Board of Directors and our management team spent two years studying and analyzing this opportunity. We looked hard at the technology. We studied the feasibility. We researched the market. And we looked closely at what other electric cooperatives across the country did – and didn’t do – as they began offering broadband service to their membership. We wanted to make sure that if Trico made this decision, it was the right decision and in the best interest of our Members. In October, we put the power to finalize the decision in our Members’ hands and the response was overwhelming.
Our Member-driven pre-subscription program is the tool we used to confirm the level of interest our Members had in Trico Fiber. We knew that 7 in 10 Members said they strongly supported Trico Fiber in our surveys, but we wanted the data to show how many would sign-up and where they were located. To do this, we divided our service territory into 170 zones and set pre-subscription targets that would prove both financial and operational feasibility before we moved forward. The response was clear; Members want Trico Fiber.
Our requirement for launching Trico Fiber was to have zones with a total of 10,000 homes in them hit their target take-rate (each zone had a different target based on financial feasibility). We achieved that result in mid-February. In fact, not only did we hit our goal, we received over 10,000 pre-subscriptions across our service territory. This was our green light to move ahead and a strong indication of interest in almost every neighborhood we serve.
That kind of response from our membership is remarkable, and I want to thank every single one of you who raised your hand and said, “Yes, I want this.”
With this launch, Trico joins over 200 electric cooperatives across the country that are meeting the connectivity needs of their membership. Just like we’ve met the energy needs of southern Arizona for eight decades, we’re now stepping up to meet the broadband internet need as well. It’s a natural extension of who we are as a cooperative and our focus on serving our Members.
So, what’s next? Over the coming months, we’ll be designing service to the zones that have qualified and getting our systems ready so Members can sign up. We’ll be finalizing the details on packages, speeds, pricing, and everything that comes with the service – as well as options like bundling that I think a lot of you will be interested in.
We expect to begin connecting our first Members later this year, and there will be plenty more news coming your way before then. We’ll keep everyone informed on which zones have qualified and where we’ll be building over the next year. I’d encourage you to follow Trico on social media, check our website regularly, and keep an eye on the emails we send out so you stay in the loop.
Thank you – sincerely – for the trust you’ve shown in Trico to deliver fiber internet. Our goal has always been to bring cooperative values to everything we do, and that’s exactly what we intend to do with internet service. You own this cooperative. You always have. And now, together, we’re going to bring world-class connectivity to our communities.
More to come soon. Thank you.
Brian Heithoff, Trico CEO and GM
