Community Archives - Golden Belt / GBT Communications

GBT Annual Meeting 2023 – Letter from the General Manager

I am grateful to have this yearly opportunity to connect with our members and share cooperative happenings. It allows GBT representatives to visit and provide members with our successes, challenges, finances, and plans for the future. For 70 years, all our member-owners have trusted us to connect you to the world. Although we call this an annual meeting, it is really a celebration for you, our member-owners. This year embarks a special celebration as the cooperative not only celebrates its 70th year in business, but also anticipates crossing the finish line on connecting every member with FIBER!!! The Cooperative covers over 3,200 square miles with 1.6 members per mile, so this mark comes with a lot of pride from the GBT team. This kind of accomplishment doesn’t happen without a vision that has covered many decades of sound leadership, planning, and commitment from past and present Board members and employees. Over the last couple decades, that vision includes investing in fiber; GBT believes a fiber investment is one that keeps the future in mind. A fiber network transforms rural areas by strengthening commerce, advancing education, enabling precision agriculture, and improving healthcare. The GBT Board gave the direction to begin plowing fiber to its members in 2007, and now in 2023, we are 97% complete! GBT has invested over $46 million dollars in fiber to the home builds since the Board directed back in ‘07. In 2022, the rural areas of Garfield and nearly all the Bison exchange were completed, along with the City of St. John. It is our objective to build the rural areas of Burdett, Otis, Utica, and Beeler this year, along with the cities of Larned, Macksville, and Stafford. We can be grateful that our financial position comes at a time when we are on the cusp of a capital expenditure program of more than $15 million in fiber deployment. The cooperative feels very strongly about ensuring our members have a reliable and quality broadband...

Fiber Internet for Rural Pawnee & Stafford Counties

Community, Pawnee Co. Fiber, Press Releases, Stafford Co. Fiber

Governor Kelly recently announced that GBT was awarded a $6,782,694 grant from the State of Kansas through the Kansas Capital Project Funds Broadband Infrastructure Program. This grant will be used by GBT to provide Fiber Internet, Voice, & TV services to approximately 530 homes, businesses, and other public institutions. The project, which consists of the entire eastern half of Rural Pawnee County and a western portion of Rural Stafford County, will provide fiber-fed, high-speed broadband for the first time to residents who live in these under-served areas. GBT, headquartered in Rush Center, Kansas and celebrating its 70th year of operation, has been deploying Fiber to the Premise for 15 years in the communities and rural areas of western Kansas. With the awarding of this grant, GBT will be able to offer this area the latest in broadband technologies, including Internet speeds up to 1 Gig. To read the full press release click here.

2022 GBT Annual Meeting

Apr 1, 2022

[elfsight_social_share_buttons id="2"]April 2022 | 5 MIN READEMBRACING TECHNOLOGY AFFECTS QUALITY OF LIFE?95%GBT members who have speeds up to 1 Gig! $3.85 MDollars GBT has invested to bring Fiber to our members. $1.7 MDollars in capital credits that were retired $1.7...

Fiber is the name of the game

Mar 30, 2022

A Continuous Commitment to our Communities | GBT 2021 Year in Recap

Jan 31, 2022

Fiber is the name of the game

Community, Internet

[elfsight_social_share_buttons id="2"] APRIL 2022 | 2 MIN READ FIBER IS THE NAME OF THE GAME. As GBT continues to provide the best Internet and Communication services to residents and businesses in our area, GBT is very excited to announce the expansion of Fiber services in 2022 to the communities of St. John and Larned, as well as bringing Fiber to the rural customers in the Garfield, Burdett, and Bison exchanges. The 2022 rural exchange Fiber builds will begin in Garfield this summer, followed by Burdett, and finishing in Bison. St. John - Bringing an even BETTER user experience. GBT has been providing communication services to the community of St. John since 2008. GBT General Manager Beau Rebel stated, “With the continued growth and support GBT has seen in the community and the need for even faster Internet services than what we provide today, it was an easy decision to invest and upgrade our current infrastructure to a fully Fiber network within the entire city limits of St. John. We hope the community is excited to have access to Fiber services and understands the positive economic impacts Fiber can have with this upgrade.” GBT plans to start converting St. John customers to Fiber in the Summer of 2022. “It was an easy decision to invest and upgrade our current infrastructure to a fully Fiber network within the entire city limits of St. John. We hope the community is excited to have access to Fiber services and understands the positive economic impacts Fiber can have with this upgrade.” Larned - Filling a Fiber need. In Larned, GBT brought Fiber communication services to many of the businesses in 2018. The businesses that switched to GBT’s Fiber services have consistently voiced praise about GBT’s reliability, price, and the level of customer service they have received compared to what they had experienced from their previous communication provider. GBT General Manager commented, “As business customers have become familiar to GBT’s service, now the...

A Continuous Commitment to our Communities | GBT 2021 Year in Recap

Community

As we start a new year, I would like to take a moment to say THANK YOU to our many customers and update you on a few company happenings. GBT’s Fiber Network continues to grow, with homes and businesses getting blazing fast Internet connections that only fiber can deliver! Many rural areas lack fiber because it isn’t financially viable for big Internet companies to provide service due to lack of population density. The GBT Cooperative has invested over $40 million in the last 13 years to bring 94% of our members a ROBUST Fiber Connection! 2021’s focus included the rural areas of Brownell, Bazine, and McCracken—meaning these areas, along with current fiber-connected members, will have access to Gigabit Internet connections and the best experience available in the area! The GBT Cooperative has three more exchanges--Bison, Burdett, and Garfield—planned to receive fiber connections in 2022. I am sure many of you unwrapped an Internet-connected device this holiday season that depends on a robust Internet connection to deliver the desired performance. The GBT Cooperative understands the broadband needs of our members are evolving--upgrading to 100% Fiber Optic Network throughout our area has been part of our long-term commitment and strategy that should wrap up in the next three years! Getting expert, local IT help is easy with GBT Business Technology Solutions. GBT has increased its offering of Business IT Solutions recently because of demand from our customers. As technology evolves and society becomes more dependent on the Internet for commerce, attacks have become increasingly more common. Often hackers target small business because of the lack of security infrastructure to protect against these threats. Whether a business is large or small, when IT issues arise, productivity can come to a standstill. Our team is close, accessible, and ready to help keep your business running. Call us, and we will customize a package to meet your individual needs! In addition to...