Colorado’s rural providers—including family-owned companies, member-owned cooperatives and rural focused corporations—have served their communities for 50 to 100 years, delivering advanced high-speed Internet, video and voice services across almost 30 percent of the state of Colorado’s land mass.

Several Colorado Telecommunications Association member systems serve areas larger in size than Rhode Island. CTA member companies are providing rural customers with broadband networks to ensure that they are connected locally, nationally and globally.

Rural broadband providers connect residences, small businesses, agriculture and valued community anchors like schools, hospitals, libraries and emergency services. They even connect wireless towers for cell service.

CTA Member Principles:

• Maintain and/or increase state and federal funding for rural broadband networks.

• Minimize state and local overbuilding of existing private networks by collaborating with local rural companies to provide the most reliable and long-term sustainable broadband networks.

• Ensure that Net Neutrality principles are applied equitably across all networks and providers. Net Neutrality should be national standards and not done state by state.

• Support non-discriminatory and competitively neutral access to all public Rights-of-Way (ROW) and private easements, including pole attachment agreements and rates.