We want to take a moment and highlight a company that we have worked with over the years and share a sort of unsung hero situation that many don’t know about.

As many people know reliable and affordable high-speed electronic connectivity is fundamental for economic activity in this day of age. Access to high-speed telecommunications is vital for a diverse set of industries, including agricultural production, manufacturing, mining, forestry, health care, and acts as a catalyst for rural prosperity by enabling efficient, modern communications between rural households, schools, and healthcare centers as well as markets and customers around the world. Coos County’s deficiency in connectivity could not have been made more apparent and dire during the COVID pandemic. The availability, functionality, and speeds to residents and businesses that are connected is extremely limited and many are still without access.

During the pandemic a smaller regional wireless/broadband company, Netafy, stepped up in ways no other telecommunications company offered, spearheading major efforts to help our communities in this time of need. By fast-tracking their buildout of the desperately needed Internet capacity in their Coos County service area, they completed installation upgrades with multiple Carrier 10Gbps Fiber Internet Onramp circuits and upgraded equipment and facilities at dozens of locations in Jefferson, Whitefield, Dalton, Berlin, Milan, Stark, Dummer, Errol, Lancaster, Northumberland, Stratford, Columbia, Colebrook, Stewartstown, and Pittsburg nodes, amongst others.

This company also agreed to acquire the declining Wireless Linc/MTT local Internet network infrastructure when the previous company was going to just shut the system down, leaving its customers with almost no options. Most of the MTT clients would have been disconnected completely at such a dire time, with no easy alternatives, if any at all.  Netafy not only provided complimentary upgrade installation ($250 average cost per household) but also provided bridge billing credits to the MTT customers that were converted through the rebuild process.

While the system was built well, it was in desperate need of upgrades, efforts that significantly drained their financial resources. Netafy knew the community couldn’t wait for federal funding, nor could they continue to operate the older existing equipment by entertaining the “brake/fix” mentality like many of the larger companies may have. As a community-oriented business, they instead spent the time, money and human-power to do the necessary upgrades without any financial assistance. They felt it was a way they could give back during the pandemic and undertook this effort willingly. Since late 2020 more than $150,000 has been invested so far to retrofit numerous nodes back to their core fiber, along with over $250,000 in carrier fiber, without any outside funding. 

It is in these unusual times that we need to take pause and highlight the businesses that go the extra mile when unexpected. To learn more about Netafy check out https://netafy.com.

If you know of a business that you want to give a shout-out to, please email execdirector@coosedc.org to share your story so others may learn of their community-oriented business practices.