Texas-based DZS and Irby Utilities worked together to help 4-County Electric Power Association bring gigabit broadband and smart grid connectivity to rural Mississippi.

DZS is a specialist in broadband connectivity platforms and communications software. It is helping electric cooperative 4-County in east central Mississippi in conjunction with Irby Utilities, a subsidiary of Sonepar, which provides fibre networking.

Now in its second year of buildout, 4-County has moved beyond its pilot of DZS technology and Irby Utilities broadband network planning and deployment expertise to the aggressive expansion of its Fastnet fibre programme to its membership across nine counties. This programme could be transformational to the region when it comes to fruition over the next few years, as 4-County lays over 6000km of fibre to bring gigabit-plus services capabilities to over 40,000 homes and businesses.

Made possible by over $35m in Rural Digital Opportunity Funds (RDOF) and millions more in Cares funding and investment by 4-County, the fibre programme will also enable the cooperative to connect its critical electric infrastructure to a smart grid communications network.

“This ground-breaking Fastnet fibre project is more than just bridging the digital divide,” said Brian Clark, CEO at 4-County. “It is obliterating it by bringing multi-gigabit capable hyper-broadband services via GPon and XGS-Pon access technologies to areas with extremely limited broadband access. As this network comes to fruition, it will catapult 4-County’s membership straight to the forefront of the digital age and provide transformational opportunity to our region. The rapid and successful pilot build out and our whole Fastnet fibre project would not have been possible without Irby’s expertise. We are thrilled with the progress that we’ve made already and believe in the transformational power that unleashing hyper-fast broadband will have in our member communities in east-central Mississippi.”

With approximately 40,000 members and 50,000 meters along 8800km of power lines, 4-County is already one of Mississippi’s largest electrical cooperatives, serving residential, commercial and government users, including a US Air Force base, a large truck engine plant, a drone manufacturing facility and a steel mill that is the largest TVA power consumer in the southeast. All these members are potential beneficiaries of the fibre broadband network, enabling symmetrical speed residential packages of 200, 500 and 1000Mbit/s today and having the potential to deliver 10Gbit/s services on demand, all over the same fibre infrastructure and DZS Velocity and Helix systems.

Irby Utilities is now helping 4-County plan for and deploy range of DZS technologies that include the Velocity V14 multi-terabit FTTx OLTs with GPon, XGS-Pon and Combo line cards form the foundation of Fastnet’s multi-gigabit capable services deployment.

The DZS Helix Edge Access products provide wired connectivity in the home, while DZS Mesh-2100 dual band AC2100 wave two wifi repeaters are enabling a carrier-class wifi network for home and small office use.

“4-County and Irby Utilities have done an incredible job bringing cutting-edge technology and services to one of the most underserved markets in the USA in a very short period of time, and DZS is proud to be a critical partner in the efforts of electric cooperatives to rapidly transform these markets into hyper-connected showcases,” said Jay Hilbert, chief revenue officer at DZS. “This project is already making a huge difference in the quality of life for the families and communities of east Mississippi and has laid a strong foundation for ongoing economic development in the area. We believe 4-County is a powerful example to other electric cooperatives of how they too can find success in deploying gigabit-plus broadband to their members by leveraging available government stimulus funds and grants as well as unparalleled expertise of DZS and Irby Utilities.”

The partnership with DZS, Irby Utilities and 4-County is one of many similar efforts taking place now with rural electric co-operatives across the USA. The RDOF programme has already allocated over $1bn to electric co-operative projects, with DZS and Irby Utilities involved with over $100m in awarded and approved funding. Billions more are still available.

In Mississippi alone, the state has allocated over $1bn to electric cooperative buildouts, leveraging funds from multiple federal, state and regional sources.

Irby was founded in 1926 and is based in Jackson, Mississippi. Irby Utilities has 57 locations supporting activity in 47 states.