Until recently Tennessee State Law prohibited electric cooperatives in Tennessee from providing retail telecommunication services. However, with the passing of the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act last year, the restrictions have been lifted for areas of Tennessee not served by a telephone cooperative. The only SVEC area not served by a telephone cooperative is Marion County.

SVEConnect will begin serving members in Marion County in the summer of 2018. Fiber-to-the-premises will be built in phases, with Phase 1A being within the city limits of South Pittsburg. Phase 1B will be Kimball town limits; 1C will be Jasper city limits and 1D will be Whitwell city limits. 

About Sequachee Valley Electric Cooperative...

Sequachee Valley Electric Cooperative was incorporated on July 31, 1939, by a group of community leaders from Marion, Sequatchie, Grundy and Bledsoe counties. These leaders could foresee the benefits of an electric utility owned by and responsive to the people who were to receive electricity from it. At that time, many people from this area did not have electricity because for-profit electric companies would not build lines in rural areas because there was not profit to be made in low-population density areas.

The primary purpose for founding the Cooperative was to enable the rural people in the Valley to secure electricity to improve their way of life and standard of living. Local townspeople who already enjoyed the benefits of electricity knew that the economic future for everyone would be improved with electricity available to all.