Otsego Electric Cooperative Launches OEConnect Offering New Broadband State-of-the-Art Fiber to the Home Internet Network in Otsego County and parts of Herkimer, Madison and Chenango Counties

OEConnect is a Limited Liability Corporation started by Otsego Electric Cooperative in 2018 to provide fast reliable Fiber-to-the-Home Internet and Phone to the rural areas we serve.  

 The fastest internet service in the area will be offered at up to 1 gigabit-per-second with no data caps! We will offer service to any home, business, nonprofit, school district, or municipality that we pass during construction and within about 800 feet of our poles initially. Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP phone service and Managed WiFi will be offered at all connection points also. We will be offering service in parts of the network very soon as we complete fiber splicing and electronics connections!

We have obtained state and federal grants from the New York Broadband program to help build a fiber network of over 800 miles throughout Otsego Electric Cooperative’s electric system and beyond.

The home base of operations will be at Otsego Electric Cooperative’s offices at 3192 County Hwy. 11, Hartwick, NY 13348. There will also be communications hubs with electronics at our seven substations. Our connections to the internet will be at our headquarters and the signals will come into and run back in two directions to increase our network redundancy and reliability. There will also be several rings within our network.

The fastest internet service in the area will be offered up to 1 gigabit-per-second with no data caps!* We will offer service to any home, business, nonprofit, school district, or municipality that we pass on our system initially and future plans will allow for expansion outside of our electric system to nonmembers as well. Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP phone service will be offered at all connection points also.

OEConnect has partnered with Conexon to provide us with consulting, project management, network design, and construction management. Conexon works exclusively with electric cooperatives across the country that are investigating or building fiber optic networks on their electric systems. The terms of the New York State grants require us to build the network in the grant-designated areas by December 1, 2019 so we will concentrate construction there first. We have strung about 300 miles of fiber throughout our electric system. The construction vehicles should all have “OEConnect” and “Otsego Electric Cooperative” signs on the driver-side doors. As construction progresses, we will begin to build out to non-grant areas inside and outside of Otsego Electric Cooperative’s system. Please call us at 607-293-6622 if you have any questions about the construction areas or about anything else.

OEConnect is accepting names to be put on our waiting list for Internet Service, phone, and Managed Wifi. Applications for service will be available soon so please call now to get on the list. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter at our Otsego Electric Cooperative page or Twitter address to get our most recent updates. We look forward to offering you the best gigabit internet service available anywhere, right here in our communities in the very near future!

This deployment of broadband service is supported by a grant awarded to Otsego Electric Cooperative by New York State through the New NY Broadband Program.

*Actual speeds of service may vary depending on: the plan that you sign up for; the type and age of your router or devices that are hooked up to your service (old devices are not as fast as newer devices generally); the website you are visiting; conditions on the internet at the time you connect; whether you are connected wirelessly or by hard wire. Older wireless devices that are not capable of 5G will see much slower speeds. In addition, distance from our router will affect the speed. For the best results, customers will also want to make sure they have some updated firmware in their device.