Thanks to Joe Buttweiler for sending me a heads up on last weekend’s big meeting in Cook County. They held the annual Arrowhead Electric Cooperative, which included a few of the following announcemnts that I was able to find on the Arrowhead Electric Cooperative blog…
To that extent, Arrowhead Electric Cooperative is very happy to say that today, June 9th we placed our first order for fiber optic cable! Our initial order is for 450,000′ (85 miles) and we’re prepared to purchase up to another 90 miles in 2011! Our ability to order fiber optic cable was made possible after receiving revised closing documents from the RUS two weeks ago and our notification from RUS and the MN State Historic Preservation Office that we are cleared of all Federal Environmental Reviews.
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Due to incidents in Japan, tornadoes in the mid-west, and numerous federal stimulus projects, most manufacturers of fiber optic cable have production lead times of 20 to even 30 weeks out (i.e October or November!) Due to Pulse Broadband’s long history and strong relationships in the business, we are able to have fiber optic cable delivered in mid to late July.
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We expect that in the next 1-2 weeks we’ll be able to happily announce a general contracting partner who can begin construction during July or August!
They were also looking to pre-register folks for service. I’d love to know how many signed up!
Blandin on Broadband 
Arrowhead had 100 people sign-up at our annual meeting (we ran out of forms – a good problem to have), and as of 3:15pm today exactly 100 have signed up online…We didn’t know how many to expect but it’s going great thus far….- Joe
Fantastic! Thanks for the update – and congrats!
Ann