Cross Telephone Company, L.L.C.

PROJECT PURPOSE

Cross requests funding to deploy a fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) network to provide reliable, affordable, high-speed broadband service to nearly 5,900 locations in Muskogee, Sequoyah, Haskell, and Pittsburg Counties including numerous anchor institutions such as police departments, fire stations, municipal buildings, schools, libraries, and health care facilities. The project includes the communities of Warner, Porum, Webbers Falls, Gore, McCurtain, Quinton, Kinta, Keota, and Longtown. We currently serve these areas and are eager to upgrade them to FTTP.

EVIDENCE

None

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

The populations to be served by our project are in rural areas, all on tribal land, without access to reliable, affordable high-speed broadband. Because they lack access to broadband, they were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic since, without reliable broadband, they could not engage in remote learning, remote work, or telehealth. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the need for broadband access in these areas. The ARPA grant would enable us to deploy FTTP to meet the demands of the new, post-COVID-19 market. Cross' project areas include areas that are both unserved and underserved and are not funded by other broadband programs. Parts of the areas are also qualified census tracts.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

We will measure project performance by tracking construction progress, expenditures, and the number of locations built to each quarter. Once we activate customers, we can perform speed and network performance tests. We will provide reports on progress, expenditures, locations served, and speed and performance tests, as needed.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma