Imagine home schooling with your only internet being satellite: slow speeds, low upload capacity, and data caps that come with hefty fines if you exceed them. Or, trying to run a business, not to mention just streaming TV…. For years that was the only internet across must of the Central Catskills.

MTC wanted to fix the problem. In 2009 the tiny local telephone company applied for federal funds for broadband. Just the application took two years and then a third year to learn they didn’t get the grant. The phone company turned to MARK, and executive director Peg Ellsworth worked to get them grants Empire State Development Fund.

MARK’s help netted millions of dollars for laying cable and connecting homes. One grant even creatively leveraged MTC’s working with the Delhi Telephone Company and Delhi Rural Electric Co-op, with the three partnering together. As MTC CEO (and now MARK board member) Glen Faulkner says, “All of us are here because it’s not worth it for big phone companies or power companies to serve the very rural parts of our region.”

One such place: Lexington. In western Greene County, it suffered from the 2011 floods and population loss. People interested in second homes would consider the town, then choose elsewhere. “No broadband, no traction,” as Don Bramley MTC’s CFO puts it. The town wasn’t big enough to get county or state assistance. “It had been forgotten,” Faulkner says. The residents appealed to MTC, but Lexington was beyond their jurisdiction. MTC even reached out to Spectrum and other providers on the town’s behalf. To no avail. Now MTC covers 99% of the town, including remote Spruceton. That meant the West Kill Brewery and other small businesses like the Spruceton Inn could open there. MTC even got cards from residents thanking them for the help.  

Across the region MTC has laid more than a thousand miles of fiber optic cable (which costs approximately $38K per mile) connecting more than 13,000 homes and small businesses. This has also allowed MTC to more than double its own staff from 18 to 40 employees, creating jobs and opportunities not just in the connected homes but in Margaretville itself.