On September 21, in Boston, Massachusetts, the NTCA, The Rural Broadband Association, awarded Rainbow Communications with their highest honor, the Showcase Award, for building Smart Rural Communities.

A Smart Rural Community relies not only on high-capacity broadband connections but also on teams of highly motivated and collaborative leaders—the people behind the technology. Fundamentally, a Smart Rural Community uses broadband networks to enable applications that the community can leverage for innovative economic development and commerce, blue-ribbon education, first-rate health care, cutting-edge government services, robust security and more efficient energy distribution and use.

Rainbow highlighted as many as twenty different local organizations and businesses that utilize broadband to enhance growth and innovation in the national application. The Smart Rural Community (SRC) program is administered by NTCA, with several third-party, non-telecom organizations that have interests in rural America. This latter group includes the American Farm Bureau Federation, Rural Schools and Community Trust, John Deere, and the U.S. Veterans Health Administration's Office of Rural Health.

What set Rainbow apart was our recent investing of $20 million upgrading its broadband network. Among the upgrades, Rainbow installed a 100% Fiber-to-Home Network in our cooperative exchanges and a core Fiber network for anchor institutions including schools, hospitals, and government offices in Hiawatha, Sabetha, and Seneca, with offerings up to 1 Gig symmetrical.