Missoula’s Blackfoot Communications marking 70 years in business

Seventy years is a long time to be in business.

But over the weekend, Missoula-based Blackfoot Communications celebrated that milestone with its shareholders.

The member-owned company is on track to invest millions of dollars in internet infrastructure in some of our smallest communities.

It was all about community, connectivity and co-op at the annual Blackfoot Communications meeting in Missoula.

“I say a co-op is very important to Western Montana because, before the cooperative formed in 1954, rural residents really did not really have telephone service,” says Blackfoot Communications Board President Tom Eggensperger.

Hundreds of cooperative members met to see new products and programs, and how the company is preparing to expand its footprint in a landscape where accessing the internet is crucial.

“Broadband has become an essential component in the way we live whether it’s education or the economy or business and personal and we’re doing everything we can to fill in those gaps,” noted Blackfoot Communications CEO Jason Williams.

Cooperatives around the country are investing to expand their digital footprints as they add broadband to their networks of established phone or electric infrastructure through a variety of funding sources.

“We’ll spend more than $200 million to get everyone connected across the more than 7,000 square foot footprint,” Williams noted. “We’re doing that with the help of federal and state grants but we’re investing a lot of our own capital to be able to do that.”

The federal and state grants are part of a larger effort to bridge the "Digital Divide" — especially in rural areas and in Montana’s smallest communities.

Blackfoot Communications says it’s ready for the next 70 years.

“Originally people just wanted to feed the cities because that’s where the money is, there’s concentration,” Eggensperger explained. “So, it takes companies like ours -- a cooperative -- to reach out and reach out that everyone has the advantage of good telephone service and good communication. And these days it’s all about broadband.”

Visit https://www.blackfoot.com/ to learn more about Blackfoot Communications.