Twin Lakes celebrating 75 years of providing telecommunications services to the Upper Cumberland region after its 1951 creation.
CEO Jonathan West said the cooperative was established to bridge the gap between small town-based telephone systems and the isolated rural parts of the county. West said the organization has since evolved to become the largest broadband cooperative in Tennessee.
“If you look at the impact to the community is you can live in the most rural parts of the Upper Cumberland and your internet connectivity is as good as it is anywhere in the world,” West said. “Your ability to have commerce, connectivity, it’s just really unsurpassed.”
West said the formation of the cooperative required the cooperation of local leaders, organizations, and residents who each contributed a 25 dollar membership fee in 1951. West said this collective effort allowed for the creation of a communications network that now reaches across the world.
“It’s not about any select few but a large group, the entire membership, that makes it work,” West said. “And if you look back to 1951, memberships in the cooperative duly formed then were $25. And that’s a lot of money in 1951. But each and every person that connected contributed that $25 in a membership fee and helped all of them collectively put together helped to establish the network that crosses the Upper Cumberland and the world today.”
West said the mission of the cooperative remains focused on connecting people even as the methods of delivery have transitioned from copper wires to fiber optic and wireless technology.
“We’ve changed with those times and tried to stay at the forefront of technology to deliver not just an average telecommunications service and connectivity service but some of the best in the world in some of the more rural parts of the country,” West said.
West said the network is a vital part of the community because it connects people to one another and allows one community to connect to the next. West said the cooperative has expanded its original footprint by many miles to better serve the customers in the region.
“And so just want to say thank you to each and every one of those customers, to our communities, and hope that we can continue to grow for 75 more years and beyond to deliver on their needs,” West said. “And we’re just always ready and available to have the conversations that need to be had about what the future services look like.”