Timing, they say, is everything, and the timing of a push for broadband internet within New Hampshire Electric Cooperative couldn’t be much better.
“The argument is a whole lot easier now than it was a year ago,” said Dick Knox, one of a number of people behind a petition drive at the state’s only electricity cooperative.
A proposal added to the annual board of directors’ balloting, the first such drive in the cooperative’s 81-year history, would change its articles of incorporation to add “facilitating access to broadband internet for members” as a core purpose.
In other words, it says that as long as you’re sending electricity over wires to our home, why not send fast internet over fiber-optic cables — because if there’s one thing the past two months have shown it’s that we all need broadband.
If it passes this would be a first for an electric cooperative in the Northeast, but not nationally. More than 210 electric cooperatives have gotten into the broadband business in other parts of the country, particularly the Upper Midwest, according to a group called Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Cooperatives, which are owned by the customers, are strong in the Plains, where they have stuck around after bringing electricity and telephone services to farm areas a century ago when utilities wouldn’t do it.
The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative’s board opposed the petition, 7-3, even though they support the goal, because they’re afraid it will cost too much and “divert resources from the co-op’s existing core focus on delivering safe, reliable, affordable electric service to its members.” In a statement, the board said the coop hired a consultant to examine the issue in 2018 and concluded that the downside was too great.
NHEC, headquartered in Plymouth, has about 84,000 customers in 115 communities throughout the state, including parts of Canterbury, Loudon and points north. Most of their service area is rural.
The petition is part of the annual vote for the board of directors. Ballots are going out to members and are due back by June 16. A two-thirds approval is required.