July 2019 | BroadbandCommunities Magazine
Key Products: Consulting services, fiber design, construction management, fundraising and operations for rural electric cooperatives deploying fiber to the home
Summary: As the urban-rural digital divide continues to widen, rural residents throughout the United States have begun to look to electric cooperatives as potential internet service providers. Conexon was founded in 2015 to help electric cooperatives leverage their fiber infrastructures to provide broadband services to their members. Conexon performs feasibility studies, secures financing, manages construction, optimizes business performance, advocates for rural broadband and manages ISP operations for co-ops that prefer to outsource operations. Conexon has worked with nearly 100 electric co-ops and other utilities in more than 20 states on projects that have the potential to deliver fiber broadband services to millions of homes and businesses. More than two dozen of those co-ops now actively deploy fiber to the home. The company’s relationships with co-ops deploying FTTH is timely: A 2018 National Rural Electric Cooperative Association study estimated that the dearth of broadband access for 6.3 million electric cooperative households resulted in more than $68 billion in lost economic value. Conexon has more than 50 employees and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.