Ritter also included a $12 million investment in Fort Smith Metro.

As a $12 million expansion investment nears completion in the Fort Smith region, Ritter Communications expects to provide high-speed Internet and phone service to businesses in Fort Smith, Van Buren, Alma and the Ozarks by the end of September.

Alan Morse, President and CEO Jonesboro-based Ritter CommunicationsOn Tuesday (August 30), the company has been working on a major expansion project in Arkansas for the past five years.

“We’ve spent $250 million over five years to expand the fiber network across Arkansas, not including nearly $67 million in grants from the state to build fiber to the home in some areas,” Morse said. “Overall, expansion is happening, and we’re proud that the river valley is a part of it.”

Ritter Communications has teams looking at the Fort Smith area looking at the possibility of expanding its fiber network into the Fort Smith, Arkansas River Valley area.

“We’re looking for communities with significant business activity, many potential business customers, from small to mid-sized enterprises,” Ritter said. “Often our sales team will go out early just to try to get the lay of the land, see how people currently feel about services and whether they’re open to alternative ideas.”

Before the company decides to expand into an area, Ritter looks at how the market potential “stacks up” in terms of market size, business community and other demographics, Morse said.

“Fort Smith and River Valley seemed like a good opportunity for us,” Morse said.

A recent expansion of service in the area by Ritter Communications to bring 100% fiber internet to the Fort Smith metro and northwest Arkansas is one of those, according to a news release.

“We understand how important high-quality, high-speed Internet access is to business and educational success,” Morse said.
Relationships with local businesses and schools in the river valley are vital.

The communications company has started a $12 million investment in Fort Smith, Van Buren, Ozark and Alma to build business corridors, Morse said. He said that the company will later expand into residential services by doing another phase. Currently, there are no plans to increase housing in this part of the region, he said.

“Never say never. We do the same competitive analysis to decide whether to do this expansion as we do housing,” Morse said.

Although the company has commitments from commercial customers, Morse said he has not yet been authorized to release those.

“We have seen a very strong response. Very positive feedback. At this point, we are encouraged by interest,” he said.

Morse is looking to achieve 35-50% market share in the Fort Smith area over the next five years, depending on the strength of competition and the makeup of the business community.

The speed at which we can gain that market share depends on many factors, including the strength of the competition. … That’s the level of success we’re used to when we enter historically underserved markets,” Morse said.

While there aren’t bundled service packages with the cost of residential services, Ritter has a list of services that businesses can choose from, from Internet access to voice services, Morse said. There are solutions for call centers and cloud services and data center services to meet the additional needs of enterprise customers, he said.

“It’s not one size fits all. It’s different from housing where we can say here’s a list to pick your package. Each solution is custom-made for a different customer,” Morse said.

Ritter Communications is managing the Fort Smith region through its Northwest Arkansas office. There are about 50 employees for the Northwest Arkansas and Fort Smith regions, he said.

Construction has been completed in Alma, Ozark and Van Buren and is nearing completion in Fort Smith, Morse said. To celebrate the completion of construction, Ritter Communications made a $5,000 donation to the Donald W. Reynolds Cancer Support Center. The company previously made a $5,000 donation to the Morgan Nick Foundation.

Ritter Communications provides broadband fiber, telecom, video, cloud and data center services. The company operates in 112 communities and has more than 45,000 customers in Arkansas, Texas, Missouri and Tennessee.