AMERICUS — Pineland Communications, a subsidiary of Pineland Telephone Cooperative from Metter, made a donation to the South Georgia Technical College (SGTC) Foundation recently, announced SGTC President John Watford, Ed.D.

Pineland is providing approximately $2 million in capital investment in infrastructure to bring gigabit-enabled broadband service to the business community of Americus in an effort to support economic development and business growth. Pineland currently serves over 1,300 square miles with its traditional phone and internet services in all or parts of nine-counties in Southeast Georgia. The cooperative is currently in its 67^th year and 100 percent of Pineland’s phone and Internet customers receive their services via a dedicated fiber-to-the-home network offering gigabit-enabled Broadband connections.

“On behalf of South Georgia Technical College and the South Georgia Technical College Foundation, I would like to thank Pineland Communications for their donation. We appreciate the partnership and their acknowledgement of the contribution that South Georgia Tech makes to workforce education in this region,” said President Watford.

Pineland General Manager and Executive Vice President Dustin Durden explained that “here in Americus, we have partnered with our electric cooperative brethren to help bring broadband networks to the areas of Georgia that lack service. Pineland Telephone was formed in 1951, to provide basic telephone service to underserved areas of Georgia and today we see a similar opportunity with broadband. We are continuing our mission today by providing advanced technology and services as good or better, than in many urban areas. As we move into a new era of connectivity, we stand to deliver a pipe of data to businesses where it will be consumed by an infinite amount of devices that we haven’t even dreamed up yet.”

With the new service, the majority of the businesses in the Americus area have access to gigabit capacity.

Watford met with Matt Massey, Steven Snell, and Sidney Rhoney from Pineland to thank them for the donation and express his appreciation for offering this service to the Americus business community and surrounding areas.