“This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you pushing it through.” That’s what Newton County Judge Ronnie Cochran told Lonnie Hunt at a courthouse gazebo in rural East Texas on October 22, 2026. Hunt runs the Deep East Texas Council of Governments, known locally as DETCOG. The group just switched on the first finished piece of a long-promised Newton County broadband network, and county leaders turned the moment into a celebration.
Here’s what’s actually confirmed. DETCOG and the internet provider Nextlink Internet marked the completion of a $9,008,688 broadband project in northern Newton County, Texas, according to KJAS and the East Texas Banner. The project reaches more than 2,700 households, about 6,700 residents, through fixed-wireless towers backed by roughly 60 miles of new fiber-optic cable. It’s the first completed phase of a larger $51 million plan meant to eventually cover six East Texas counties, and the Texas Tribune reported on October 27 that this phase is expected to wrap up by the end of November.
Why It Matters to You
If you live in northern Newton County, this is the difference between driving to town for a Wi-Fi signal and running a video call from your kitchen table. Officials tied to the project say the new network should make telehealth appointments, remote work, farm and ranch recordkeeping, and schoolwork easier for households that have gone without reliable service for years. It should also strengthen emergency alerts during hurricane season, a real concern in a region still recovering from 2016 flooding. None of that is guaranteed yet. Nextlink hasn’t published a price for the service, and nobody has said exactly when individual homes can sign up.
What’s Actually Being Built in Newton County
Instead of trenching cable to every rural address, which is slow and expensive, Nextlink is beaming a signal from towers connected by a 60-mile fiber backbone. That’s a common approach for sparsely populated counties, where running fiber to each individual house rarely pencils out financially. DETCOG selected Nextlink to design, build, and operate the network under its contract. Nextlink’s CEO, Bill Baker, credited the mix of “regional leadership” and “public investment” for getting the project built, per the East Texas Banner. The company says it’s investing more than $1 billion in rural fiber and fixed-wireless networks across its footprint, according to KJAS, a figure Nextlink itself reports rather than one any outside group has verified.
The Money Trail Behind the Newton County Broadband Grant
The funding for this project traces back to flood recovery money, not a typical broadband grant. The table below breaks down how the pieces fit together.
| Project Phase | Funding | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Newton County, Phase 1 (complete) | $9,008,688 Texas GLO grant, plus a 1% match from the T.L.L. Temple Foundation | 2,700+ households, about 6,700 residents in northern Newton County |
| 2023 regional award | $42,694,000 from the Texas GLO’s Regional Mitigation Program | Broadband and emergency radio infrastructure across Newton, Polk, Jasper, Tyler, and San Jacinto counties |
| Full regional plan | $51 million total, with the remaining funds released as future phases are bid out | Six East Texas counties, eventually |
Source: Texas General Land Office press release (Sept. 22, 2023); East Texas Banner and Texas Tribune (Oct. 2026)
The Texas General Land Office’s Regional Mitigation Program spends federal Community Development Block Grant Mitigation money from HUD, tied to 2016 flood disaster recovery, not a standalone internet-access fund. Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, M.D., said at the ribbon cutting that “reliable broadband services are essential to rural communities across Texas.” HUD requires that at least half of the program’s money benefit low- and moderate-income households, though DETCOG hasn’t published how many of Newton County’s 2,700 newly connected households qualify under that rule.
Louisiana took a related approach with its own disaster-linked fiber push, wiring fire and police stations before reaching every home. Newton County’s plan runs the opposite order, starting with residential coverage first.
What We Don’t Know Yet
- Nextlink hasn’t published what households will actually pay each month, or whether a low-cost tier exists for income-qualified residents.
- The Texas Tribune says this phase should finish by the end of November, but neither DETCOG nor Nextlink has given KJAS or the East Texas Banner a confirmed date for when homes can order service.
- Five of the six counties in the larger $51 million plan are still waiting on construction bids. The remaining $42 million doesn’t get released until those phases go out to bid.
- No independent group has measured the network’s actual speeds or reliability yet. Every performance claim so far comes from the companies and agencies building it.
- DETCOG’s broadband director has projected the finished six-county network could support 10,000 new jobs over a decade. That’s the coalition’s own estimate, not a measured result.
DETCOG also just launched something separate worth watching: the Pineywoods Broadband Coalition, reported by the Texas Tribune, which plans digital-skills training for residents who’ve never owned a laptop and fiber-splicing certification programs for local workers. A fast connection doesn’t help much if nobody nearby knows how to install or troubleshoot it, and that’s the gap this new group is trying to close.
Newton County now has a working network and a ribbon-cutting photo. The other five counties in this plan don’t have either yet, and the contractors who’ll build their piece of it haven’t been picked.
Sources
- KJAS: $9 Million Broadband Expansion Project Launched in Newton County (Oct. 22, 2026)
- East Texas Banner: DETCOG Celebrates 60 Years With Ribbon Cutting With Nextlink (Oct. 22, 2026)
- Texas Tribune: Coalition in Deep East Texas Aims to Build Tech Workforce, Connect Region (Oct. 27, 2026)
- Texas General Land Office: Commissioner Dawn Buckingham Announces More Than $68 Million in Regional Mitigation Program Projects for Deep East Texas (Sept. 22, 2023)