In early 2018, Marshall County REMC was exploring the idea of building a fiber optic ring around the county that would be used to interconnect all substations, delivery points, and critical devices within the REMC electric grid. Our board knew that having all these devices interconnected on a secure fiber network was a crucial step in modernizing our grid and best positioning ourselves for future needs.

Since Marshall County REMC had no experience with fiber optics, we reached out to RTC, a nationally recognized innovator in the fiber industry and one of the first small telcos in the country to fully deploy a fiber to the home network in Fulton County, Indiana, back in early 2000.

That conversation ultimately led us to not only working with them to design and build the REMC-owned fiber ring referred to as the “smart grid”, but also led to the creation of Marshall County Fiber. Marshall County Fiber is a fiber-to-the-home partnership bringing fiber internet to many of the underserved and unserved areas of Marshall County. To date, Marshall County Fiber is available at over 4,000 addresses in rural Marshall County, with plans to pass another 1,300 in 2024.

Customer feedback regarding sales, installation, customer service, tech support, and internet service has been highly positive. For those who have Marshall County Fiber available and are considering getting service or those who may have another service and are considering switching, I want to point out a few things that make our fiber the best choice.

First and foremost, Marshall County Fiber is 100% locally owned and operated. Combined, RTC and Marshall County REMC have been in business and supporting our local communities for over 200 years. Unlike most fiber networks, we have not taken shortcuts to cut costs. Marshall County Fiber takes great pride in our state-of-the-art network we have built, including redundancy to minimize internet outages if a fiber is cut anywhere on the network. Also, we are responsive to customer needs should an issue arise. Lastly, our internet packages are competitively priced for the rural market.

In the last several months, we have seen other companies from outside the area starting fiber to the home build-out projects in Marshall County. If you are looking at getting service or changing from your current provider, I would advise you to be cautious because not all fiber internet providers are created equal.