REC and Ciello – what’s in store for 2022? By Loren Howard
While it seems like most of the past two years has been consumed by the “pandemic” and the world situation is now consumed by the Ukraine war, REC and Ciello are continuing to strengthen and protect both the electric and fiber infrastructures.
Last year, a mile and a half of power line was replaced on Wolf Creek Pass, principally for mitigating fire risk. In 2022, another project is in the works to replace more power lines near the Sangre de Cristo mountains to again reduce fire risk.
Work should resume on underground replacement in the Baca area. The wire in this area is more than 20 years old and has a reputation for insulation failures. Major effort has been made in the past three years to replace significant portions of this line and the work continues again in 2022.
Ciello has applied for a grant with the US Department of Agriculture ReConnect3 program to build fiber into the Hooper and Zapata areas and near Capulin. This application was submitted on March 9 and will proceed through an evaluation process by USDA. It will likely be late May or June before the evaluation is complete. Hopefully, Ciello will receive the grant and more of the difficult-to-serve areas will get fiber Internet service.
Cybersecurity has been at the forefront of many businesses and industries for a few years and current world events have made it even more imperative. Ciello has always been on top of Internet security, and rest assured that those efforts have not stopped. REC and Ciello have engaged US Department of Homeland Security to perform vulnerability assessments, and the first results showed that both REC and Ciello are in great shape. Despite these great results, work continues to ensure survivability should a concentrated cyber-attack occur.
Every person should be concerned about cybersecurity and needs to increase personal efforts to prevent loss of personal information and hacking of financial information. Don’t use the same password for email and bank accounts. Carefully consider suspicious emails before clicking on them. Use antivirus software to help eliminate viruses in emails or attached to websites.