Flint Energies, an electric membership corporation in Georgia, has selected Conexon Connect to provide a FTTH-based broadband network in its middle Georgia service area. Conexon Connect is the internet service provider (ISP) arm of rural fiber broadband design and construction management leader Conexon.
The project, which will cost almost $90 million, is expected to be finished in four years. It will reach nine counties with a fiber network of almost 3,000 miles. Flint says that it will also use the network to strengthen its electric system and deploy smart grid technologies. Potential benefits to the electric network include improved power outage response times, better load balancing and more efficient delivery of electricity.
The broadband element of the project provided by Conexon Connect will reach about 31,000 homes in Crawford, south Houston, Macon, Marion, Muscogee, Peach, Schley, Talbot and Taylor counties.
“The collaboration between Flint Energies and Conexon offers multiple advantages,” Conexon Partner and Conexon Connect CEO Randy Klindt said in a press release. “The state-of-the-art infrastructure improvements that smart grid delivers will provide Flint with operational efficiencies and benefits, while the Connect partnership gives Flint Energies an opportunity to assist in meeting the broadband needs of unserved and underserved members. We’re proud to be part of another Georgia project and look forward to working with the Flint team.”
This is not the first Georgia deal for Conexon. In June 2021, it was selected by Irwin EMC to build a fiber network in south central Georgia. The company is building a 1,900-mile FTTH network spanning eight counties and reaching all of the members within the footprint.
About a week earlier, the company announced its selection by the Mountain View Electric Association to provide an FTTH network serving the cooperative’s 51,000 members in Colorado.
Conexon won a large amount of funding in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program to cover some of the costs of deployments in rural areas. The company’s funding was approved by the FCC in December.
