What is RS Fiber?
RS Fiber is a community driven utility cooperative created to bring a high-speed fiber-optic and wireless Internet connection to everyone in the project area and provide reliable and affordable Internet, TV, and phone services.
Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) is the leading technology for next-generation communications throughout the world.
RS Fiber is owned and democratically controlled by its members. When you become an RS Fiber customer you are a part owner of the network. More than 6,200 area homes and businesses have the opportunity to become RS customers.
The RS Fiber Cooperative will be financed from multiple sources. The 10 cities and 17 townships that voted to join the project have formed a Joint Powers Agreement to collectively sell a $13.7 million Generally Obligated (G.O.) Tax Abatement Bond and make an economic development loan to the RS Fiber Cooperative. The cooperative will make the bond payments on behalf of the cities and townships.
The RS Fiber Cooperative project is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a permanent, lasting and positive investment in our future. For rural residents it represents an opportunity to bring technology to their homes that will never happen again. The phone companies have already said rural residents must settle for wireless or slow DSL technology and cable companies are not interested in serving them.
What is a cooperative?
RS Fiber is a local cooperative, much like local area ag cooperatives that have been in business for more than 100 years.
Cooperatives are typically based on the cooperative values of “self-help, self-responsibility, democracy and equality, equity, and solidarity” as well as the seven cooperative principles:
- Voluntary & Open Membership
- Democratic Member Control
- Members’ Economic Participation
- Autonomy & Independence
- Education, Training, & Information
- Cooperation Among Cooperatives
- Concern for Community
Cooperatives are dedicated to the values of openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. Economic benefits are distributed proportionally to each member’s level of participation in the cooperative, for instance, by a dividend on sales or purchases, rather than according to capital invested.
Utility Cooperative
A utility cooperative delivers a public utility such as electricity, water, or telecommunications services to its members. Profits are either reinvested into infrastructure or distributed to members in the form of patronage or capital credits, which are essentially dividends paid on a member’s investment into the cooperative.
RS Fiber Cooperative
The RS Fiber Cooperative was formed in 2012 as a 308B Minnesota Cooperative. Most older cooperatives today are 308A cooperatives. A 308B cooperative can raise outside capital more easily than a 308A cooperative.
There are patron and non-patron members in a 308B cooperative. Patron members have a controlling voice in the economic interests over non-patron members. A 308B cooperative has a corporate shield comparable to a corporation as well as a board of directors made up of patron and subscriber members elected by members at an annual meeting.
Cooperative Membership Advantage
By becoming an RS Fiber customer you will be a part owner of the network.
Since 2016 RS Fiber profits have been allocated back to improving the network. In the future the board of directors could allocate profits to members (customers) on the basis of use rather than investment. If that is done, a minimum of 20% of those allocations must be paid in cash. The remaining up to 80% of those allocations is accounted for in each member’s name as equity. Eventually that allocated equity is redeemed to members in cash—again assuming the Cooperative has sufficient working capital—based on policies approved by the Board of Directors.
