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Janell Hauck, marketing manager for Microsoft telco partner Dickey Rural Networks (DRN) discusses how DRN has been working to provide, promote and increase broadband usage in Rural America.
Dickey Rural Networks is a telecommunications company serving south central North Dakota. Our service territory is very rural, having only 5 people per square mile. The largest city within our area is Lisbon with a population of 2,182. The area is primarily agricultural with a few large manufacturing plants. The average age of our subscriber is 55 years old.
As the local telecommunications provider, we supply high speed Internet with downloadable speeds up to 40 MB, television with high definition programming, local wire line telephone service, and security systems.
The biggest challenge we have as a local telecommunications company is educating our customers about the benefits of having high speed Internet service and how it can enrich those living in rural America. We are currently deploying Fiber to the Home (FTTH) technology to our service territory and serve over 73% of our subscribers using this state of the art technology. Within the next few years, our entire service territory will be utilizing FTTH technology.