Choptank EC Brings Broadband to a Chesapeake Bay Island Business Park

By Cathy Cash, Staff Writer for NRECA

Choptank leaders, the Queen Anne’s County Economic & Tourism Development and Broadband Advisory Council and the Maryland Department of Commerce cut the ribbon on the co-op’s fiber build-out to an 85-acre commercial center on Kent Island. (Photo Courtesy: Choptank Electric)

A coastal Maryland county had a mission: Get uninterrupted high-speed internet to a large commercial center on an island in the Chesapeake Bay.

Choptank Fiber chose to accept the challenge.

The broadband subsidiary of Denton-based Choptank Electric Cooperative recently completed the nearly two-mile underground fiber optic build-out to the Chesapeake Bay Business Park and will begin connecting businesses before the new year.

“As a member-owned electric cooperative, we were addressing a vital need identified by our members when we launched the fiber broadband business,” said Mike Malandro, Choptank president and CEO. “Extending service to this business park helps bring world-class businesses with competitive wages to Maryland’s Eastern Shore.”

Queen Anne’s County’s request for proposal called for a partner to install affordable, extremely fast, weatherproof internet to the new 85-acre business park on Kent Island. Choptank won the bid’s $71,201 construction cost-share grant and invested an additional $271,000 to build a broadband backbone and provide turnkey service with symmetrical speeds up to 10 gigabits to the properties.

So far, the co-op has 20 pending connections at the park, which lies outside Choptank’s electric territory.

It’s Choptank’s first large commercial broadband partnership with county economic development agencies. The co-op’s local roots and a long view on cost recovery lifted its bid above the competition, said Valerie Connelly, Choptank’s vice president of government affairs and public relations.

“Our business model is to bring jobs to the community, to be a good community partner,” she said. “That helped make us so attractive to the local government.”

Choptank began laying fiber in 2021, and now its broadband network is available to 11,700 homes and businesses in eight counties. It expects to celebrate connection No. 5,000 by February 2025.

https://www.electric.coop/choptank-ec-brings-broadband-to-a-chesapeake-bay-island-business-park