Valley Communications assures Pahrump community state broadband funds being pulled does not effect the co-op.

This month, news broke that $52 million in pandemic relief funding previously allocated for projects that would increase high-speed internet access across Nevada has been pulled, with Pahrump named as one of the locations impacted by the move.

This has led to widespread concern among locals but Valley Electric Association (VEA) officials are striving to assure the community that this action will in no way impact the cooperative’s subsidiary, Valley Communications. While internet company Stimulus Broadband’s plan to bring its service to the area has been curtailed by the decision to redirect these dollars to other programs, VEA Chief Executive Officer Robby Hamlin said Valley Communications’ fiber-optic network has been entirely built out and its service will continue uninterrupted.

“Our biggest concern when we saw the headlines was that our members in Pahrump, and also Sandy Valley to an extent, might see that and have questions about their existing broadband services or, if they are wanting broadband, concerns about not being able to get that,” Hamlin told the Pahrump Valley Times in an interview on Tuesday. “So, we really want to get the message out that Valley Communications is fully serving the Pahrump Valley and the areas of Sandy Valley within our service territory.”

As it stands today, the entire town of Pahrump has access to 1 gig fiber-optic internet service and a large majority of the town can access 2 gig service. The co-op also offers residential wireless internet but, with the local fiber network complete, this is something Valley Communications is working to phase out.

“Fiber is pretty much future-proof,” Hamlin detailed of the advantages of fiber optics versus wireless. “Once you get the medium in place, once you hang the fiber, you can upgrade and get higher speeds by simply changing out the electronics on the sending end and the receiving end, whereas there are physical limitations on how much bandwidth you can push through the air through say, a microwave system, which would run your traditional wireless internet. And fiber is just a better connection. If you do have weather, wind, atmospheric conditions coming through, fiber optics isn’t affected by that.”

Hamlin said the co-op is currently in the process of switching all of its existing customers from wireless to fiber internet and once that is finished, it will be time to turn its attention to expanding into other parts of Valley Electric’s service territory.

“We have our existing WiMax system in place and what we’re doing right now is, we’re going to our existing customers who are still on that system, we’re retiring the radio that they have on their house and we’re pulling in a fiber-optic service drop from either the pole or the transformer to the house. And we’re doing that installation at no cost to our existing customers,” Hamlin explained.

As the co-op works toward phasing out WiMax, Hamlin is encouraging anyone who currently uses Valley Communications’ wireless internet service to schedule a time for an internet tech to install fiber service at their homes.

“We’ve been reaching out to our wireless internet customers to get them set up for the swap but we’ve been struggling to get people to respond and call us back to do the scheduling,” Hamlin remarked. “It’s really something that needs to be done. We’re even doing some Saturday installs, to help accommodate people’s schedules, because as that WiMax equipment reaches the end of its life, it not only gets more expensive to operate, but we can’t find spare parts for it. And it’s eventually going to get to a point to where a customer’s service may drop out. We really want to help our customers avoid that, so give us a call to set it up. Remember, it’s completely free for our customers to switch!”

For more information on Valley Communications’ internet service, visit VEA.coop or call 775-727-5312.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com