Bristol Tennessee Essential Services (BTES) is a municipality-owned electric utility that also provides high-speed internet, telephone, and cable television services over a fiber optic network. BTES is in the business of providing reliable, safe, and cost-effective electric service to more than 33,000 customers in a 280-square-mile service area in the City of Bristol and Sullivan County, Tennessee. Sixty years after its inception as an electric company, BTES began providing Internet and cable television services in 2005. One year later, the BTES’ telephone services were fully operational. BTES now provides some of the fastest internet speed available in the United States with the speed of one gigabit per second available to every business and home in our service area!
After a comprehensive two-month pilot evaluation of SMARTest that ended in December 2014, BTES has decided to implement SMARTest across all its nineteen substations. It is also considering using the GIS-based Distribution Maintenance of SMART for its poles and line devices.