Ritter Communications, a telecommunications company headquartered in Jonesboro, announced Friday it is investing $7 million in infrastructure to bring state-of-the-art communications technology and advanced business services to Hot Springs.
Beginning as early as August, the company plans to give Hot Springs and Garland County businesses "access to the highest speed, 100 percent fiber internet, voice, cloud solutions, networking and television services," a release said.
"We try to connect people, organizations and communities to the world," Alan Morse, president of Ritter Communications, said at a news conference Friday morning at The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce.
"Our focus has been to help rural communities grow and prosper by providing the same state-of-the-art services that you normally get in major urban areas," he said, noting they provide services to 89 communities and more than 45,000 customers in Arkansas, southeast Missouri and western Tennessee.
"In the last several years, we have expanded our network to offer services to places like Batesville, Mountain Home, Searcy, Russellville and now Hot Springs," Morse said.
Motorists on Interstate 30 where it connects with Highway 270 in Malvern "may have seen the trucks from ABB. Those are our construction crews already extending fiber south from Little Rock to get here," he said.
Ritter plans to bring Hot Springs businesses access to 100 percent fiber internet, he said, noting, "We're the only provider that does that in this part of the state." Customers will have access to service up to 10 gigabits per second, he said.
"It's the best we have and the best that's out there. We believe it will give Hot Springs the competitive advantage. As the chamber goes out to recruit new businesses, this is a selling point they will be able to use."
Gary Troutman, president/CEO of the chamber and the Hot Springs Metro Partnership, said in June 2017, the boards of directors of both the partnership and chamber held a collective community meeting "to take a hard look in the mirror" and assess where the community needed to improve and "where we simply did not measure up" and the area found to be most lacking was broadband access and connectivity.
"We made a pledge that day to ourselves, to our businesses, to our kids, and to our community that we were going to ratchet things up three or four notches to make this happen. We were not going to take no for an answer," he said.
Troutman said they knew they needed to find a partner, "a company that had a proven track record of fantastic service and results" at a fair price, and a friend, Andy Arnold, introduced him to Ritter in October 2017 "and here we are today."
Founded in 1906 in Marked Tree "in the Delta," the family owned Ritter has "become quite a different company" over the last 113 years, but as a function of being a family business they offer "relationship-based customer service," Morse said.
"We think of ourselves as a strategic partner and not just a vendor of services," he said, noting their tag line is "Right by You." meaning "we're not only your neighbors, right by you geographically, but also we always want to do right by you in terms of our business relationship."
Although unable to attend the conference in person, U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-District 4, sent a video message thanking the Chamber of Commerce and Ritter "for doing this very important project" to expand high-speed broadband in Hot Springs.
"It's something we need to see all over the 4th District," he said.
"The playing field just got leveled," Mayor Pat McCabe said. "We are open for business. Now one of the drawbacks of our community has been resolved and that hole has been plugged. We can compete for business that requires high-speed broadband now. We're on the world stage to compete with all other communities in our region and nationally.
"We have a superior quality of place here in Hot Springs and Garland County, but we were lacking in this vital utility," he said, noting he expected to see growth now. "And not just with those 100 to 200 employee industries, but those with 10 or 15 people banging away in a loft somewhere."
County Judge Darryl Mahoney said Ritter "understands our unique community and are ready and willing to bring Hot Springs a communications package that will provide much-needed infrastructure improvements to assist us in our move forward together."
Benjamin Van Wagner, director of IT at Oaklawn Racing & Gaming and chairman of the Broadband Leadership Council, said when they first started their committee "a lot didn't know what broadband was or what we should be paying for it. In early meetings, we shared our stories and shared our bills and something we found was that a lot of companies were paying radically different prices for the exact same service and a lot of nonprofits were paying a lot more for less."
He said over the last three and a half years, "we had several false starts and crazy ideas, but we finally have something to show" with the partnership with Ritter.
Van Wagner told The Sentinel-Record the significance of 100 percent fiber is that it offers an uninterrupted signal. With other services, "the fiber is up on the poles, but the last 300 feet or so to the business" is a coaxial cable, essentially. "It slows it down and there is the possibility of interference from weather and other things."
With 100 percent fiber, "it doesn't matter about electrical interference, heat or cold," he said.
Morse said Ritter has always been involved in volunteerism and as a sign of their support for the Hot Springs community, they are pledging a multiyear financial commitment, starting with a $50,000 donation to the Majestic Park historic baseball field restoration project.
"I can't wait to see baseball being played on those fields again and we're happy to be part of that initiative," he said.
Asked about how many potential customers Ritter could get in Hot Springs, Morse told the newspaper, "We expect to get our fair share of the market here. We don't expect to get 100 percent. We know there are competitors and those are good companies and they're going to react. If we can get our fair share of the market over the next three or four years we'll be happy with that."
Local on 02/16/2019