A New Powerhub In Midland Will Make Faster Internet Across West Texas

Rural infrastructure has been a topic for the past few weeks and a new company has chosen to take it on.

According to NewsWest 9, Big Bend Telephone offers faster internet and more available internet that is needed all across West Texas, and that is what helped create this new powerhub in Midland.

"We've been doing market research here for a little over five years and we determined that there was enough demand here and need for a facility like this where businesses could co-locate their critical business infrastructure in a safe, secure environment with guaranteed power and up-time," said Neville Haynes, Big Bend Telephone Vice President of Data Center Operations.

Big Bend Telephone says COVID-19 helped rush this need and they decided to take on the task that they hope will benefit all of West Texas.

"We also interconnect with the regional cog here to provide 911 services to several counties and towns in the region, as well as several school districts," Haynes said. "This facility will serve as an aggregation point for that data to help get it out of the Permian Basin. Much like we were having trouble a few years ago getting oil out of the Permian, the same is with data."

Many companies are interested and Haynes says they have a plan if there is another snowpocalypse that shuts down power grids.

"We have backup systems, upon backup systems, upon backup systems," Haynes said. "It's become more and more important to everyone's lives to stay connected, which is one of the driving forces behind what we do at BBT and it's also the driving force behind why we decided to invest in the Midland community and the Permian Basin region."

The center is scheduled to open sometime in June 2021.

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