Since 1938, Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation (CEMC) has provided safe, reliable, and affordable electricity to its members in Stewart, Cheatham, Montgomery, Robertson, and Sumner counties. Back then, farmers within this area recognized that there was a need for electricity, but no one was providing this service because it wasn’t profitable. CEMC was formed in the late 1930’s for the specific purpose of providing electricity to this rural area to meet this need. Today, CEMC provides electric service to almost 100,000 electric accounts and owns and maintains over 8,000 miles of electric distribution facilities throughout its service territory. Fast forward to today and once again, rural Tennesseans are in need, but this time for high-speed internet service. We are excited to announce that CEMC plans to meet this need. The State of Tennessee passed the Broadband Accessibility Act in April 2017 which allowed electric cooperatives in Tennessee to offer retail broadband internet services to its members. Since that time, CEMC has diligently studied this opportunity and surveyed our membership to gauge interest. Following a very favorable response, CEMC’s Board of Directors voted to create Cumberland Connect, LLC in order to provide these much-needed services to its membership. Cumberland Connect will provide high-speed internet, phone, and TV service over a state-of-the-art fiber optics network. CEMC and Cumberland Connect are excited about the opportunity to meet the pressing needs of our membership! CEMC and Cumberland Connect are currently working on design and engineering for the fiber optic network. Although we wish that it could be constructed more quickly, we anticipate the construction of this entire network to take between 5-6 years due to the large scale of this fiber optics network (over 5,000 miles of fiber!).