A new competitor in commercial phone and internet is entering the Tulsa area in the first quarter of 2017.
Bixby-based BTC Broadband recently completed a 90-mile fiber optic backbone network stretching from Henryetta to Bartlesville. President Scott Floyd said they’ll build out from that main line into Tulsa by April, roughly at the intersection of the Broken Arrow Expressway and Highway 169.
"There's a huge concentration of business that is located right along that corridor. Quite frankly, there is not enough telecom infrastructure to be able to supply good services to all the businesses there," Floyd said.
Most of the fiber optic cable making up BTC's business network is buried.
"It costs a little more, but it's more important to have that reliable network," Floyd said. "So, we've invested in the infrastructure to do this, and the majority of everything we're talking about is underground. It's hardened. It's resilient."
Floyd declined to say how much BTC spent on building the backbone network. He said the network will be a draw for new businesses, so it’s an investment in economic development.
"Having not just access to high-capacity, low-priced, very, very reliable internet, but it also needs to be competitive prices," Floyd said. "One of the things that industries look for when they're coming is how much competition do you have?"
BTC's expansion is only of its business fiber network, so Tulsans won’t be able to get the telecom provider’s gigabit internet service at home.
