The RANGE’s community partners extend from small businesses to universities, and one of our most unique partnerships is with Region 16, the state-funded education service center covering the 26 counties of the Texas Panhandle. Region 16 has recently received $28 million in funding from the USDA’s ReConnect Program to bring affordable high-speed fiber internet to school districts in the rural Panhandle with a total retail value of $90 million. However, that funding still falls short of FiberLight’s $37 million proposal to install it.
“I could turn the key over and start building fiber [internet] tomorrow, but we have to come up with [nearly an additional] $10 million. And it doesn’t matter who it comes from,” says Michael Keough, chief technology officer for Region 16. “I’ve thrown the net out to as many structures as possible to say, ‘How can we get this to happen?’”
The RANGE is working with Region 16 on this project because the infrastructure that will bring broadband access to schools will also benefit the cattle feeders, dairies, family farms and other businesses who align with our priority areas.
Keough explains further: “So when I build the fiber [through Region 16], I’m paying for the construction, the piping, the right of ways, all those things to build this structure to support the schools,” he says. But those optical fiber strands will run in front of homes, businesses and ranches. “They will go from Vega to Hereford and go right in front of a dairy where the dairy will say, ‘Oh, I can connect right to my facility.’”
It represents a huge opportunity to bring high-speed internet to the rural Panhandle and the agricultural businesses that are so central to the local economy.
Beef and dairy scientist Matt Garner, Ph.D., executive director of The RANGE, explains that rural broadband access is a critical component on the future success of this region. “This is about the future. We’re not trying to build this infrastructure so farmers can watch Netflix. We’re looking at deploying the most innovative precision agricultural technologies and practices, which can increase efficiencies,” he says. “Connectivity allows enormous savings from the use of precision technologies. It reduces pesticide use by up to 80 percent, uses 40 percent less water, and helps save more than 20 percent on fuel.”
Piggybacking on Region 16’s efforts to bring critical digital infrastructure to schools gives producers a high-ROI opportunity to connect dairies, feedlots and farms. In the future, as AI-assisted technology begins to improve cattle operations, for instance, that computing power will need infrastructure. Broadband can then improve cattle tracking, crop health, weather monitoring and water conservation.
“That’s where the partnership [with the RANGE] comes in really heavily,” says Keough. “We’ve covered the bulk [of the installation costs] because we started the project. l get to dig the hole. I get to build the infrastructure. And everybody else gets the benefit because more fiber is going in the ground.”
