TORRINGTON – This month Visionary Broadband will be celebrating its 30th year connecting many Goshen County and surrounding areas to the world wide web. 

“Many communities take high-speed internet for granted, but rural areas can often be left behind,” the release explained. “For years, Visionary Broadband has stood out for its focus on connecting the hard places, no matter what it takes.”

In 1994, three visionaries turned a Bulletin Board Service with six modems and a 56k connection into an area broadband powerhouse, the company explained. Visionary Broadband was the first provider of broadband internet access to dozens of rural communities in Wyoming. Presently, Visionary is in more than 100 communities and the company has 30,000 customers across Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and New Mexico.

Brian Worthen, Visionary Broadband CEO, noted the goal started out to simply connect the community to the internet. 

“Our journey began with a $20,000 loan from a banker who believed in us when others didn’t. We turned that loan into 60 dial-up accounts, and we’ve never looked back,” Worthen said in the release. 

Visionary Broadband has navigated the ever-changing landscape, as broadband technology evolves, with agility and determination, according to the release. 

According to Worthen, competitors once thought of Visionary as “ankle-biters,” however the company was determined to continue to grow.

“But each time we saw an opportunity to improve or innovate, we went all in. We’ve pivoted eight times,” Worthen said. “The willingness to change is the key to our longevity – and our ability to compete with the biggest brands.”

As the demands for faster, stronger internet continue to grow throughout the area, Visionary branches out through even the most difficult locations.

“The majority of our Wyoming coverage is on the eastern side. You guys are right in the heart of that and then along I80 on the southern side,” Worthen explained. “That’s where we spend most of our time in Wyoming. Our network sees conservatively 210,000 homes and businesses.”

In Wyoming, the company has spent most of the time working on broadband connections.

“We have spent a lot of time on broadband in Wyoming,” Worthen said. “When you talk about us and you say, hey, we’re an option now, we spent a lot of years making sure we were an option. With the investment that we have got in fiber, which has really escalated since COVID (19), I think we are a really solid option.”

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way the world used the internet. 

“DSL, pre COVID (19), was acceptable but when people are now working remote on teams or ZOOM and need that connection it needs to be reliable and fast enough to have that video call,” Worthen said. “Video calls quickly replaced phone systems and that has been one of the single biggest drivers for our investment in fiber.”

Most of the older competitor have a much slower upload speed, according to Worthen. 

“There is a big difference between upload on a DSL or a cable network version the upload speed fiber is capable of. Fiber’s really unlimited with regard to speed. Cable and DSL are copper-based and there’s some serious limitations to the upload,” Worthen explained. “That’s why we have spend so much time and money on fiber in the last four or five years.”

According to Worthen, the fiber connection option is only available for some area customers or those who live in or near town.

“We’re working all the time. Obliviously, when you build fiber, you have to have a certain concentration of homes. Depending on the community, it might go further out of city or town limits but often there’s a point where fiber between homes doesn’t make sense,” Worthen explained. “People may be on three acre lots or even bigger and you really can’t make fiber work financially without grants or without some sort of extra funding model. That’s why we use wireless, once it gets to a certain point or a certain distance from town.”

Worthen predicts the next few years will be cortical to the advancements made for the fiber connection. 

“If fiber had been built 20 years ago, when labor was cheap, we wouldn’t be talking about this today. Now, labor is expensive; the time to put it in the ground. The materials really aren’t that expensive – it’s really the labor to put it in the ground,” Worthen said. “When you think about heavy equipment and whatnot, going further out in the county, it just does not make financial sense. But we are always seeking ways to build further out.”

According to Worthen, the company built connections in the Goshen County area with the use of grant funds.

“In Torrington, we built a lot of network organically, but in La Grange and Yoder we used CARES funds when the state came out with that in 2020,” Worthen said. “We used some CARES funds to justify a small population fiber network. It’s really a financial balance of how far out of town you can go with a fiber product. We are always trying to push that limit for sure.” 

Worthen expressed his company has been treated very well by the community in and around Torrington. He also explained the relationship the company has been able to form and maintain within the community has been a valuable asset to both the company and the community.

“When we ship materials to locations and have a yard, like we have a yard in Torrington where we store all of our stuff, we’re generating sales tax income for the community. There’s a financial benefit to the community,” Worthen explained. “The other thing is then there’s a property tax aspect as well. Once we build fiber, there’s a property tax mechanism that we are submitting to the community. It’s true investment in the community. These are true dollars flowing into the community to help offset the construction phase or the fact that we are building a network along community streets and roads. I like that fact.”

According to Worthen, the community of Torrington, including the city employees, has been more than welcoming. 

“It’s really emphasizing we are investing locally and the fact that it’s a relationship with the community of Torrington. Torrington, as a community, has been one of the most supportive of us I’ve ever seen,” Worthen said.