New Mexico-based Penasco Valley Telephone Cooperative (PVT) says it’s using a $1 million disaster relief grant from the New Mexico Office Of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE) to construct and expand reliable Internet access in numerous New Mexico communities that have historically been subjected to wildfires and flooding.
According to cooperative leadership, PVT is building an alternate fiber broadband route to establish more resilient and redundant connectivity to inhabitants of areas like the Capitan Mountains Wilderness, where the Seven Cabins Fire recently burned 31,000 acres after the crash of a medical plane last June.
The investments are also intended to shore up redundant communications connectivity in areas like Lincoln County, where the combined South Fork Fire and Salt Fire burned through over 25,000 acres, destroyed 1,400 homes and commercial buildings, and killed two local residents.
Many fires are compounded by resulting landslides and flooding, which further threaten property and lives in the region.
“After the 2024 wildfires that destroyed broadband infrastructure in Lincoln County, we dedicated funds to help communities struck by such environmental disasters,” OBAE Director Jeff Lopez says of the grant. “New Mexico must prepare for longer drought and more extreme fires, so it is critical that communities and first responders stay connected during these challenging times.”
OBAE’s Connectivity to Declared Disaster Areas Grants program heavily leverages funds made possible by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
In addition to providing redundancy and more reliable access for local homes and businesses in an era of escalating human-caused climate destabilization, the newly-funded fiber route will also connect Fort Stanton, managed by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, with fiber broadband access for the first time.
“After the fires, it became clear that communities like Capitan need more than one path to stay connected,” PVT Chief Strategy and External Affairs Officer Mitch Hibbard says of the effort. “This project adds redundancy and helps ensure families, businesses, and emergency responders can maintain critical communications when disaster strikes.”
In August 2025 OBAE also awarded TDS Telecom a $251,300 grant to improve climate change communications reliability and redundancy in Ruidoso and surrounding communities. OBAE states TDS’s project is already underway, bringing fiber to the hardest-to-reach areas long-trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.
PVT’s network expansion and hardening project is expected to be completed by the end of 2026 (they’ve requested a six-month timeline extension from the U.S. Treasury), while TDS says their regional upgrades should be completed by early fall.
Inline image of Seven Cabins Fire courtesy of NARA and DVIDS Public Domain Archives
Inline map courtesy of Penasco Valley Telephone Cooperative website
