Investor Spotlight: Citizens Telephone Cooperative

Type of Business: We are a regional full service communications provider offering land-line telephone, VoIP, IPTV Video, web and e-mail hosting, DSL, and FTTP (Fiber to the Premise: Business Ethernet and FTTH, Fiber to the Home), serving 7 counties in Southwest Virginia.

Mission: To provide quality service, excellent support, and advanced technology.

What makes your company special?
Citizens is a regional full-service communications and entertainment provider serving rural communities throughout Southwest Virginia. Headquartered in Floyd, Virginia, Citizens is a Membership Cooperative with roots tracing back to 1914 when landline telephone was established in rural Floyd County.

With more than 100 years of innovation behind us, we’ve withstood the test of time and have experience you can rely on. Today, Citizens provides VoIP (digital phone service), IPTV, web and email hosting, DSL, and FTTP (Fiber to the Premise) services which includes Business Ethernet and FTTH (Fiber to the Home).

As we continue to expand into surrounding communities, our commitment to provide the latest in communication technologies remains the same. It is our mission to provide our customers with quality service, excellent support and advanced technology. We have a dedication to customer service that is hard to beat and a commitment to technology.

Why do you contribute to the mission of Onward NRV?
We are not only headquartered in the NRV, 95% of our 65 employees live, play, and shop here. Our employees are very involved and committed to the communities they live in.

Citizens owns and operates a 440 Mile Open Access Network that spans 10 counties, 10 towns, and 3 cities in and around the New River Valley. We offer enterprise services directly to customers and wholesale transport services to ISPs in Virginia and North Carolina.

We routinely partner with and advise local and state government agencies regarding the deployment of advanced broadband services and how to remove barriers. It is our goal to provide advanced technology to the communities that we serve.

What is new with Citizens Telephone Cooperative?
In 2016, Citizens started offering FTTH (fiber to the home) services in the Town of Floyd and started offering Home/Business/Farm Automation Solutions (Internet of Things or IoT) in the NRV, which includes commercial grade surveillance camera systems, access control systems, and automation devices and sensors.

In 2017, we broke ground on a multi-year FTTH (fiber to the home) build-out in our ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) footprint which is primarily Floyd County and the edges of the surround counties.

Most recently, we launched Gigabit (1Gbps) Residential Broadband service to FTTH customers and are escaping the bounds of traditional speed services and migrating to broadband plans that are measured just right for the end user.

At Citizens, we are proud of our heritage and look forward to making history by building a fiber infrastructure for tomorrow’s technologies.

For more information, contact:
Citizens Telephone Cooperative
Phone: 888-501-4791
bizsolutions@citizens.coop
https://citizens.coop/
###Virginia’s New River Valley: For those searching for an inspiring place to live and do business, Virginia’s New River Valley provides both an eclectic small town atmosphere and an innovative, collaborative business community with a loyal, highly skilled, and educated workforce. Offering the best of all worlds – magnificent mountains, cutting-edge research, arts, entertainment, and education – it’s A NATURAL FIT. Onward NRV: Onward NRV is a public/private, regional economic development organization whose mission is to attract and retain world class jobs, investment, and talent in Virginia’s New River Valley. It’s also a movement where leaders from business, government, and higher education work together to promote the economic vitality of the region.