NHEC broadband overseer

Robert Cruickshank

Prompted by a grassroots effort by its members, New Hampshire Electric Cooperative is building out broadband in rural areas of New Hampshire that are severely lacking reliable internet coverage. NHEC was awarded a $6.5 million CARES Act grant from the governor’s office to help build out broadband in Lempster, Colebrook, Stewartstown and Clarksville by Dec. 15.

But that is only the beginning of NHEC’s plans.

Robert Cruickshank was recently hired to lead NHEC’s broadband network development as the co-op plans to build high-speed internet service in all 115 of its member communities that do not have 25-megabit download and 3-megabit upload capability.

Cruickshank brings a wealth of knowledge to the job, having worked as a senior executive for several telecommunications companies, including CableLabs and Road Runner High Speed Online, where he was responsible for the design of broadband networks and data centers across the country. He most recently worked at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

Q. How does your background in broadband and energy prepare you for this role of focusing on broadband within an electric utility?

A. It’s very similar dynamics, serving areas not served by existing utilities because it wasn’t cost-effective, but we feel it is well built for the co-op model. Many co-ops across the United States provide electricity, phone and internet. What is unique is where these networks are in their development that makes indepth knowledge of the convergence of these two utilities timely and increasingly important.

We know how exciting it was when we first electrified Lempster 85 years ago. You can see in our archives all of our co-op members turned on the lights and were dancing in the streets. The whole idea of reading a book at night in the rocking chair — all of that became possible. Over the last 80 years we have been extending and modernizing our electric network. And in just four years, 20 times the pace, we’re building a new fiber internet access network.

Q. What have you learned about broadband availability in urban versus rural areas?

A. Despite our best intention to get broadband everywhere, urban areas have long had much better speed than rural areas. You think about megabit service versus kilobit service. Cable modems introduced megabit service and dial-up was kind of in the kilobit range, so it was a thousand times faster — a thousand’s a big deal. What you would download in three years, you can download in a day.

Thankfully, the technology and costs and business models have evolved to enable rural areas, which have been at the short end of the stick, to have the best possible internet service. And when we say the best possible now, we’re not talking megabits, we’re talking gigabits — another factor of a thousand. We’re going to have a gigabit service available as well as a 25/3 service. That’s a million times faster than kilobit service. To put that in perspective, using that example, what would take 114 years to download at one kilobit per second can be downloaded in an hour.

Q. What do you think of a new player like an electric co-op entering the broadband space? Is there room for competition?

A. I think NHEC providing broadband is a great deal that will improve our education system and the resilience and sustainability of our communities, specifically because there’s plenty of room for collaboration and new business models. These co-ops came out of the need for reaching far into rural areas where only the co-op business model actually works. And so we’re building a reach now that other competitors can’t even get that far, but that allows us to have cooperative discussions about well, “Let’s help get your reach out to our members that you would never have reached on your own.” And the business model is there; we’ve done it in the past.

Q. What is the latest update on your broadband buildout?

A. Our CARES Act work is going well. We’re meeting deadlines by rapidly building to over 900 homes in Lempster, Colebrook, Stewartstown and Clarksville and we’ve already sent postcards to 40 customers offering to hook them up. These postcards are sent literally as we build past your home. We’re sending more postcards as we build out.

Q. When would the service be available?

A. Well, clearly some people are getting internet for Christmas and Hanukkah. And I can only imagine we are being required to be as careful as Santa is with his list and checking it twice, because it’s certainly some people’s greatest wish.

What we’re doing now is we’re focused on public safety answering points, whether it’s a hospital or 911, police, fire emergency, we’re making sure the community public safety access points are enabled first.

They’re familiar with the service and they get the benefit of the service .and then reaching out to the homes and businesses and schools.

Q. Is NHEC really building out broadband to all members?

A. We serve 115 communities. We really want every one of them to know we’re coming. In the absence of clear direction, many have started to think about what they can do on their own, and we’re extending the olive branch to make sure that they know we support them 100% — we’re coming. We will collaborate with them in any way we can.

Q. What does broadband buildout mean to your members?

A. A lot of this effort has been born out of a grassroots need expressed by our members over time that was made much more acute by the pandemic.

The drain on your internet connection is going to be maxed out with one person online, nevermind two kids on separate laptops and you trying to work out of your house. We’ve heard many, many stories. We’ve got one teacher who parks outside the Moultonborough library every day because they don’t have internet at home to teach kids that are remote. We’ve heard from a member who’s in a wheelchair and used to go into the hospital for rehab weekly and can’t do that because of the Covid risk, and the only time they can connect is a Zoom call, but this person can’t do that literally because of their internet connection.

We’ve heard story after story after story, and the pandemic was really the tipping point. We’ve been able to take meaningful action, which is what we’re here for: to be responsive to our members needs. Now we put it into action.

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