Estes Park Light and Power, located in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, currently serves 11,000 customers within 350 square miles of rugged terrain. And while Estes Park Light and Power were initially working on a Smart Grid upgrade, we are now deploying fiber to bring broadband to the Town of Estes Park.

Why is a power company deploying aerial fiber, you ask? Because, over the last several years, the community reached out to several major broadband providers. However, it was unable to secure the interest of a traditional telecom because of the low return on investment due to our rural population base.  

However, a survey done by Colorado State University showed that the residents preferred to buy high speed Internet from Estes Park Light and Power instead of from a traditional telecom company, primarily because of the established reputation for response time during power outages. Therefore, we entered the telecom biz.

That was no easy feat, given the terrain we cover. In addition to facing extreme changes in levels of elevation and harsh winter weather conditions, the installation route we used crosses both a river and a highway 4 or 5 times each. What’s more, only 40% of the poles can be reached by a bucket truck. Most, in fact are on the side of a mountain, so, our linemen must be the best. And they are the best, due to the on-going training we provide with our vendor partners.