Community invited to September 8 celebration at Metter and Swainsboro offices
On September 8, 1951, a group of citizens from Emanuel and Candler counties gathered to talk about something that would ultimately change communications across this part of rural Georgia. They wanted better telephone service.
Seventy-five years later, the cooperative that grew from that meeting is still connecting communities although the technology, the services, and even the meaning of being “connected” have changed dramatically.
Pineland Telephone Cooperative, Inc. will celebrate its 75th birthday on Tuesday, September 8, with drop-in celebrations at the Metter and Swainsboro offices. Customers and community members are invited to stop by for light refreshments with a nod to 1951, vintage-inspired prizes, and a little birthday fun. Each office will also hold a drawing for a $75 Pineland bill credit in honor of the cooperative’s 75 years of service.
It Started with a Need
Pineland’s story is part of a much larger movement to bring essential services to rural America.
According to NTCA: A History, compiled by James L. Bass, the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created in 1935 to help bring electricity to areas of the country that private investment had largely left unserved. Rural telephone service eventually became part of that effort.
Congress passed the Rural Telephone Act in 1949, establishing a federal policy aimed at making adequate telephone service available to as many rural Americans as practical through the improvement, expansion, and construction of telephone facilities.
That mission soon found its way to rural Georgia.
On September 8, 1951, citizens from Emanuel and Candler counties met to discuss the purchase and merger of four small telephone exchanges serving Midville, Adrian, Twin City and Stillmore.
In March 1952, the Rural Electrification Administration approved a $625,000 loan to purchase the exchanges and construct new telephone facilities. It was the fourth REA telephone loan approved in Georgia and the first awarded to a telephone cooperative in the state. Pineland Telephone Cooperative, Inc. was on its way.
During its first year of operation, the Metter exchange was added. In 1953, the cooperative moved its main office to Metter, where Pineland remains headquartered today.
From Party Lines to Digital Connections
Growth came steadily.
By the end of 1983, Pineland had more than 13,000 telephone lines serving ten exchanges: Metter, Adrian, Bartow, Cobbtown, Davisboro, Kite, Lexsy, Midville, Oak Park, and Twin City.
By then, another piece of telephone history had disappeared from Pineland’s network: the party line. Technology continued to advance. In 1989, all ten exchanges were converted to digital electronic switching, another major step forward for the cooperative and its customers.
Then came something that would completely redefine the telecommunications industry: the internet.
Pineland introduced dial-up internet service in 1996, providing connections of up to 56 kilobits per second. In 2001, broadband delivered over copper facilities increased available speeds to approximately 256 kilobits to 1.5 megabits per second.
At the time, those advancements represented remarkable changes in how people could communicate and access information.
But Pineland knew the future would require more.
Building Fiber for the Future
In 2005, Pineland began one of the most ambitious projects in its history: replacing its traditional network with fiber all the way to customers’ homes. The Fiber-to-the-Home project began in Adrian and continued community by community for more than a decade.
In 2018, Pineland completed the transformation of its traditional service territory, creating a 100% fiber-to-the-home, gigabit-capable network. It was a long way from four small telephone exchanges and party lines; and Pineland wasn’t finished growing.
By 2011, Pineland was serving customers inside the Swainsboro city limits. Expansion continued into new communities and markets, including Claxton, Vidalia, Louisville, Wrens, Sandersville, and part of Jenkins County, followed more recently by Americus and Sumter County. Pineland continued building deeper into its home territory. Today, every Candler and Emanuel County location has access to Pineland’s fiber-to-the-home broadband network.
The footprint has changed. The technology has changed. The amount of data traveling across the network would have been unimaginable to those citizens gathered in 1951. The purpose behind it, however, remains remarkably familiar.
75 Years Later, Still Looking Forward
Pineland was created because rural communities needed access to communications technology that would allow them to participate in a changing world. Seventy-five years later, the technology may be different, but the work continues, connecting more people, in more ways, with the same commitment to local service that has been part of Pineland since the beginning.
Today’s Pineland network bears little resemblance to the telephone system of 1951. Fiber broadband now carries enormous amounts of data for homes, businesses, schools, healthcare, entertainment, and an ever-growing collection of connected devices. The more than 13,000 telephone lines Pineland served in 1983 have given way to nearly 14,000 broadband customers today, and that number continues to grow.
Pineland is preparing to introduce a new streaming television platform as well as mobile service in the coming weeks, expanding the ways customers can stay connected at home and on the go.
Through every generation of technology, from party lines to digital switching, dial-up to broadband, copper to fiber, and now toward streaming and mobile, Pineland has continued to evolve alongside the communities it serves.
What began 75 years ago as neighbors working together to bring telephone service to rural Georgia has grown into a locally operated telecommunications company connecting communities across the region and continually preparing its network and services for what comes next.
Technology will keep changing. Pineland will keep changing with it. After 75 years, one thing remains at the heart of the cooperative: local people connecting local communities and building for their future.
Come Celebrate with Us
Pineland invites customers, members, friends, and neighbors to celebrate its 75th birthday on Tuesday, September 8, at the Metter and Swainsboro offices.
Stop by for light refreshments inspired by 1951, take home some vintage-themed prizes and help celebrate 75 years of connection. Visitors at each location can also enter a drawing for a $75 Pineland bill credit.
After all, you only turn 75 once, and Pineland wouldn’t have reached this milestone without the communities that have been part of the story since 1951. Exactly 75 years after that first gathering, Pineland invites the communities it serves to gather again, this time to celebrate just how far that first conversation has taken us.
75 years. Generations of technology. One local connection.
