The fixed-wireless infrastructure serving the grant-funded sites could support broader service later.
OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal broadband award will connect just seven locations in six Oklahoma state parks. But Chisholm Broadband executive Michelle Yirka sees the $1.24 million project as a possible first step toward something much bigger: Wi-Fi throughout the state park system.
The Oklahoma Broadband Governing Board approved Chisholm Broadband’s application on Aug. 11. The Enid-based company will use licensed fixed-wireless technology to reach locations at Great Salt Plains, Boiling Springs, Lake Thunderbird, Robbers Cave, McGee Creek and Lake Murray state parks. Lake Murray has two of the seven locations.
“We are going to supply connectivity to those addresses,” said Yirka, Chisholm Broadband’s senior vice president of business development.
Seven funded locations — and room to grow
The award is limited to seven addresses or broadband-serviceable locations selected for the Capital Projects Fund 4.0 program. It does not pay for Wi-Fi throughout the parks, their campgrounds or their cabin areas.
The fixed-wireless infrastructure does not have to serve only seven connections. Towers and other equipment used to reach a funded location can also support additional connections within range. Expanding service would require separate agreements and financing, but part of the network needed for that expansion would already be in place.
Yirka said multiple people could connect at a funded location, although Chisholm’s obligation under the grant extends only to the seven designated sites.
Approximately $1.3 million was available for the project from savings in the Community Access Portals program. Trace Fiber Networks and Pioneer Telephone also applied for the parks funding, but Chisholm received the highest score and proposed serving all seven locations. The board approved Chisholm’s application and separately declined the other two.
The Capital Projects Fund is Oklahoma’s second broadband program financed through the federal American Rescue Plan Act. The state received $159 million for CPF projects.
Under current rules, the seven funded locations must be operational by Dec. 31. Yirka said the company plans to apply for an extension.
“If worst comes to worst and we aren’t given an extension, we’ll have it done by the deadline of this year,” Yirka said. “We will make it happen.”
A wider vision for park Wi-Fi
Yirka has a considerably larger objective beyond the seven funded locations. She said she began pursuing the idea of providing Wi-Fi throughout Oklahoma’s 32 state parks years before the Broadband Office was created.
“I wanted to supply Wi-Fi connectivity in all 32 parks,” she said. “I wanted to supply connectivity to where, you know, not just to all their cabins or to their campgrounds, but throughout the park.”
She pointed to the difficulty of completing online transactions in parks where cellular service is unreliable or unavailable.
“When you go to Salt Plains to check into your little camping spot, you have to do it online,” Yirka said. “But there is no cell service there, and there’s no Wi-Fi.”
Yirka emphasized that park-wide Wi-Fi is not included in the board’s award. It would be a separate project involving the state and additional financing, and no such statewide plan was considered as part of the grant award.
“This is not part of the grant or anything, but this is my next project that I’m working on,” she said.
For now, Chisholm’s obligation remains limited to seven locations. But the fixed-wireless infrastructure gives Yirka something on which to build if the state becomes interested in broader service.
“This is just a definite jumping-off point,” she said.
