How Monahans built its own broadband network

It’s easy to take the internet for granted. With high-speed broadband available at home and elsewhere, many of us stay constantly connected at work or school, when we shop, and even when we need health care.

But Texans who live in remote parts of the state often aren’t able to count on reliable internet. Huge chunks of federal and state money allocated in the past few years are supposed to help, but it hasn’t always worked out that way.

In Monahans, Texas, residents did something about it.

Monahans is a town of 8,000 or so, located in the heart of the oil patch. It’s sometimes called “the Center of the Permian Basin.”

Though it’s connected to the world by two major highways, the town feels remote, even isolated. And until very recently, it was really hard to get a reliable internet connection in town.

Teresa Burnett is executive director of the Monahans Chamber of Commerce. She says that securing fast, reliable broadband for Monahans isn’t just about streaming TV shows or making FaceTime calls – it’s about the economy.

“Well, we actually had very limited broadband in Monahans. We did have some providers here, but as far as providing a dependable fast-speed internet system, they did not,” she said.

She realized that internet limitations was hurting Monahans.

“So we started realizing that we were losing a lot of businesses and quality-type businesses come into our area because we did not have sufficient internet to service them and all of their technology needs.”

By 2020, Burnett decided something had to be done to get the town hooked up.

But it wasn’t as if internet companies were lining up to serve Monahans. Running high-speed lines the long distances required would be expensive, and the customer base needed to pay back those investments wasn’t large. That’s why it’s often so hard to get broadband to rural places. Too much cost, for too little return.

Besides the money, the COVID-19 pandemic created an unexpected problem. 

“We were doing it right in the middle when the pandemic hit,” Burnett said.

The pandemic quickly became both a barrier and a catalyst, showing that the need for fast internet to connect homes and businesses was even greater than before, while also scrambling the usual ways and means of getting things done in the Permian Basin.

“We had to come up with some money during that time when oil was below zero a barrel,” Burnett said.

But an unexpected opportunity came when Congress passed the CARES Act in March of 2020, providing grants for businesses, individuals and communities.

Burnett says Monahans applied for and received a grant, which she believes was among the first broadband-related CARES projects to be approved. Other communities had used these grants for roadway or water projects. 

To get the CARES money, Monahans needed to raise a 20% match. With a $300,000 grant from the Permian Basin Area Foundation, they thought they were set, raising the rest of what they needed in just three weeks. 

But when the Monahans team checked in with federal officials about the grant they had been promised, they learned the funding amount had been cut – not once, but twice. In the end, the CARES Act money amounted to just $1 million of the $3.2 million they needed to design and build a fiber optic network. 

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Burnett and company got on the phone with their other funders. Carroll Faulkner, who consulted with Monahans on the technical side of the project, says the community sought and received support from several sources.

“The initial raise on the project was gathered from several sources – some government, some business – and quite a bit, believe it or not, from philanthropic organizations. People like the Murray Hall Foundation out of Midland-Odessa, the King Foundation… Still Water Foundation out of Austin,” Faulkner said.

Altogether, the team cobbled together $3.2 million for Phase 1. They planned to provide broadband connections for 2,000 homes, businesses, schools and government facilities.

To round out their funding needs, Monahans got the venture capital firm View Capital’s American Fiber Infrastructure Fund to invest in their project. Stability and reliability were key goals, Faulkner says.

“It’s an underground, fiber-optic network… We wanted reliability because every time – in the oil patch, in particular, along I-20 – when lines get cut, Monahans just goes without.”

Broadband access lines travel two directions from Monahans, giving the network redundancy. In town, the cables that connect broadband customers are fiber optic, too, running underground – protected from the area’s high winds.

The final piece of the Phase 1 puzzle fell into place when internet service provider Hosted America agreed to offer broadband service to Monahans residents, using the network on a non-exclusive basis. That means other providers will be able to offer services, too. 

Phase 1 went live a little more than a year ago.

Around town, residents have embraced a broadband offering they feel they can count on. Chis Powell is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Monahans. He streams church services for parishioners who can’t attend on Sundays. 

“It’s really been a game changer as far as enabling us to accomplish a lot more ministry than we could before,” Powell said.

Chris Powell, pastor at First Baptist Church in Monahans. The church was able to incorporate more consistent and effective livestreaming of services with the expansion of fiber optic internet in town. Michael Minasi / Texas Standard

Powell’s family benefits from the reliability of the new service at home, including his wife, who’s a nurse practitioner.

“I’ve got three kids… Before the new broadband came in, we were paying for two different companies so that we could have enough to cover the needs of the five people here in the house. And since Hosted American came in we were able to drop, and just have the one service,” he said.

At the Monahans campus of Odessa College, high school students train for nursing careers. Odessa College’s Debbie Chaney says broadband has made it far easier for students to take tests online without delays or constant computer freezes.

“The testing is what is holding up and is phenomenal. It really is because they’re all testing at one time and no lags, no nothing,” Chaney said.

Burnett, who’s focused on keeping Monahans’ economy humming along, says broadband reliability is especially crucial if you’re running a business.

“If you’re a convenience store or you’re a restaurant… and it’s during lunch time and people are trying to pay with their cards, then you have to count on them to come back and pay, Burnett said. “If you’re a motel, then people can check in and check out when they need to. But if your service is down, you can’t do that.”

Just as Phase 1 of Monahans’ broadband project was picking up steam, planners turned their attention to Phase 2. And at that point, another potential source of funds, this one aimed squarely at what Monahans had in mind for broadband, came onto the horizon.

In 2021, the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law dedicated $42.5 billion for broadband projects in underserved areas, just like Monahans. Of the total, Texas was granted $3.3 billion – the largest award to any state.

The money could support infrastructure, deployment, mapping and adoption of broadband plans. The program is called BEAD, which stands for Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment. 

To the huge pot of federal money available, the state of Texas was able to add in its own billions. Voters approved $1.5 billion in broadband funding in 2023.

The initiative also set up the state’s first broadband office to administer the voter-approved funds, as well as money coming to Texas from BEAD. The state program became known as Bringing Online Opportunities to Texas, or BOOT.

With federal BEAD funds on the horizon, and the state’s BOOT program just getting off the ground, things looked promising for Monahans’ broadband ambitions.

The town submitted a $5 million grant request to fund Phase 2 of their plan long before Phase 1 was up and running. But Carroll Faulkner says that the way eligibility was determined was a problem for the Monahans project.

“Under the current guidelines that have been adopted by the Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO), Ward County is not eligible for a single penny of state or federal funds because the state has determined, based on their criteria, that Ward County is 100% covered by reliable, high-speed broadband… And it’s a big sticking point, and a slap in the face to West Texas right now,” Faulkner said.

The problem, according to Faulkner, is the set of federal maps which the state began using after the first round of BOOT grants were made to determine eligibility for funds. He says those maps are especially wrong when it comes to existing coverage in rural West Texas counties.

Challenging the maps is difficult.

“You have to do it one address at a time. You have to provide significant evidence,” Faulkner said. “So in the case of Ward County, where a fixed wireless company… said that they have everything covered 100%, you actually have to go to…  the individual subscriber address. And they have to run tests on their network.”

Monahans did challenge what the BEAD maps said about broadband access in Ward County. But they lost out.

The first and second rounds of BOOT funding left the West Texas town high and dry. Faulkner says the bureaucratic challenge process is to blame, but he’s also frustrated with the state broadband office – the BDO. 

“It’s extremely frustrating, and the BDO takes no responsibility for assisting in that effort, other than to hold the challenge process,” he said.

Despite the lack of new state or federal money for Monahans, Faulkner says the town is moving forward with Phase 2 of the broadband plan, building on what Phase 1 has already brought to town. 

“We’re definitely going ahead… We’re in the process of getting subscribers now that helped pay for that system,” he said. “And then you use that cash flow that you got from that system then to expand your system.”

The community has also raised money that will help get Phase 2 started this fall, with the goal of completion by the end of 2026.

Faulkner says there’s a very human reason that broadband in Monahans has gotten as far as it has. He praised Burnett during a joint interview.

“Well, Teresa is the mainstay in fighting this through for the community, and she’s been so dogmatic about it,” Faulkner says. “She’s just made sure that this thing continues to work.”

Burnett responded: “He means that I’ve been a pain in everybody’s butt, is what he means. Well, I’m passionate about it. If I start something, I want to finish. It. We’re still persevering, and one way or another, we’re gonna make this happen.”

It was bootstrapping rather than BOOT or much of the federal funding programs that brought broadband to Monahans. And it may be the model communities with similar service maps will need to follow.

In the meantime, other rural parts of Texas are taking advantage of grant money. The state reports more than $620 million has been awarded through BOOT in 21 counties for projects that should be online by the end of next year.

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