VEA Wins Cornerstone Award For High-Speed Communications
Cooperative recognized for bringing wireless broadband to rural Nevada communities
DALLAS (May 3, 2017) – Valley Electric Association, Inc. (VEA) was presented with a Cornerstone Award today at the Broadband Communities 2017 Summit.
Nate Johnson, Executive VP-Broadband and IT Communications, accepted the award at the Dallas meeting, which is the leading conference on broadband technologies for communities.
“Our goal is to bring cutting-edge communications technology to the members in our service territory and, eventually, all of rural Nevada,” said Johnson.  It is nice to see that our efforts are being recognized with this prestigious award.”
Valley Communications Association, Inc. (VCA), a wholly owned subsidiary of VEA, began connecting member-owners to wireless broadband in 2016 in communities it serves in Western Nevada. Currently, speeds of 25 megabits per second are available to residential consumers within the Cooperative’s service area. Eventually, fiber-optic broadband will be available with speeds of 1 gigabit.
Later this year, one of the communities in that service area – Beatty – will become Nevada’s first all-fiber community. Each year, a committee of industry leaders, analysts, and writers selected by Broadband Communities presents Cornerstone Awards to private developments, municipalities, communities, companies, and individuals with outstanding accomplishments in the area of delivering telecommunications for the benefit of the end user.
Nate Johnson, Executive VP-Broadband and IT Communications for VCA accepted the Cornerstone Award Wednesday from Barbara DeGarmo, CEO of the Broadband Communities magazine
Since 2004, Cornerstone awards have included recognition for the most notable deployments of fiber-to-the-home in the U.S. and abroad.
Cornerstone Awards were originally established in 1989 as the Diamond Tier Awards and presented as recognition of achievement to companies providing cable services to the MDU industry (condominiums, apartments, hotels).
The Cornerstone Awards have been expanded to include and recognize achievements in broadband and telecommunications for all communities and municipalities, including residential multifamily (apartments, campus housing, active adult communities) and planned communities (multi-home developments, renewed urban areas).
About Valley Communications Association, Inc.
Valley Communications Association, Inc., (VCA), is a wholly owned subsidiary of Valley Electric Association, Inc., (VEA) a nonprofit electric utility headquartered in Pahrump, Nev. Much like VEA did 52 years ago, VCA is bringing critical infrastructure – fiber-optic and wireless broadband – to the communities in its vast 6,800-square-mile service area along the Nevada-California border that were under served by commercial communications providers. VCA is a partner in the long-haul fiber-optic network between Las Vegas and Reno and will expand into VoIP, IPTV, SmartHome and I.T. services in 2017. Long term, VCA’s goal is to expand modern broadband to rural communities of Nevada. For more information about VEA, please visit www.vea.coop.
