12 Home Residential Services » Business Services » Support » Current Customers » About Us » Contact Us Call Before You Dig! Email Settings When Will We Get Fiber When will we get fiber? This is a frequent question and the response is not an easy one. UPDATE: Fiber Deployment for WTRT April 2021 As discussed during our annual meetings, in previous newsletter artic... Read more > HOW ARE WE DOING? LEAVE US A GOOGLE REVIEW About Us West Texas Rural Telephone Cooperative was established in 1950 to provide telephone service to the rural areas in Deaf Smith, Parmer and portions of Castro and Bailey counties after the large commercial telephone companies declined to offer service to the rural areas because of the capital investment required to serve such sparsely populated rural communities, farms and ranches. Read More Residential Services Bundle & Save Telephone Long Distance Broadband Internet Computer Repair & Service Advanced Services Advertise with Us Lifeline Service Read More Business Services Business Plans Telephone Long Distance Broadband Internet Computer Repair & Service Advanced Services Advertise with Us Read More 1% Discount on Your Bill When will we get fiber? This is a frequent question and the response is not an easy one. UPDATE: Fiber Deployment for WTRT April 2021 As discussed during our annual meetings, in previous newsletter articles, and with many of you individually, West Texas Rural Telephone Cooperative has been installing fiber-optic-cable to enable us to serve our members with broadband internet. This is a multi-year project that began in 2017 when we received additional funding from the Federal Communications Commission. This funding from the Federal Universal Service Fund was designed to help us deploy fiber in our rural service area over a 10-year period. Our service area covers nearly 3,000 square miles, with a population of less than 1 person per square mile. Once deployed, the fiber will cover an estimated 1500 linear miles. I am excited to report that we have passed over 75% of our members in 2021 and we have installed approximately 1200 miles to date. We are scheduled to complete this project in 2022. Fiber is the best, most reliable technology to meet the demands for bandwidth for the technologies of the future. Wireless technology does not have the bandwidth capability that is required and is not a replacement for wireline. To give a few examples: · In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (2012) on the East Coast, Verizon wanted to replace the communications infrastructure of Fire Island with wireless technology. The authorities said no, and Verizon was forced to replace the infrastructure with fiber. · ATT was previously touting that wireless was the technology of the future until Google and others started installing fiber in selected neighborhoods in large cities. Now, ATT is installing fiber optic cable in cities across the nation. Other large commercial companies are doing the same. Those large commercial companies that would have you believe that wireless technology will work for rural America, advertise they have the least dropped calls (translated: our service sucks the least). Wireless is a complement to wireline, not a replacement. Wireless will not work without wireline facilities. We want you to know that we are making every effort to speed the deployment of fiber. And we ask for your patience as we do this. The original network that was built in the 1950s took time to build. This one will take some time as well. Looking forward to 2022! Home Copyright Infringements Interconnection Agreements Nondiscrimination Statement Internet & DSL Service Agreement Network Transparency Statement Privacy Policy Contact Us 1-806-364-3331