News

We were excit­ed to host WTOC’s Hay­ley Boland today and pro­vide some info for her sto­ry about the com­ing of fiber broad­band to the peo­ple of East Lib­er­ty Coun­ty. Hay­ley inter­viewed Coastal Elec­tric CEO Chris Fettes before Engi­neer­ing Man­ag­er Bri­an Hayes showed her reels of fiber (over half a mil­lion feet cur­rent­ly on hand) that will soon con­nect Coastal Fiber cus­tomers. Here, Hay­ley and Bri­an stand out­side the trail­er where con­trac­tors are splic­ing 144-strand fiber cable. Watch WTOC 11’s Hay­ley Boland’s piece below.

On July 20, 2021, Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp, Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, and Darien Com­mu­ni­ca­tions made a joint announce­ment of the cre­ation of Coastal Fiber, an affil­i­ate of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive. The new part­ner­ship between Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive and Darien Com­mu­ni­ca­tions will impact 16,000 Coastal Elec­tric cus­tomers in 3 coun­ties — Bryan, Lib­er­ty, and Long. Coastal Elec­tric cus­tomers in McIn­tosh Coun­ty will con­tin­ue to receive their broad­band ser­vice direct­ly from Darien Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Coastal Elec­tric and Darien Com­mu­ni­ca­tions will invest $39.5 mil­lion over the life of the project. The part­ners are present­ly still in the design phase. Actu­al con­struc­tion on the first phase of the project will begin this fall. The aim is to con­nect the first cus­tomers by Jan­u­ary 2022 — increas­ing busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, enrich­ing edu­ca­tion, improv­ing access to health­care, and much more. Phase one of the project will reach the most unserved and under­served areas of