Navajo County spent $19.7 million on a public fiber network that reaches Holbrook, Snowflake, Taylor, Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside as well as unincorporated towns like Heber, Woodruff and Joseph City. Winslow is the only incorporated city or town in the county that the 106-mile network does not reach and is the county’s second most populous city.
County officials say the reason is money. They built the line as far as the Cholla Power Plant near Joseph City and counted on Arizona Public Service (APS) fiber to cover the stretch west of there. APS says it has no firm date for that project.
“Because we couldn’t afford to build it any other way,” Assistant County Manager Rochelle Lacapa said when asked why the county relied on a private utility for that section. County Manager Bryan Layton said the county had limited dollars and tried to stretch them by connecting to partners. “Trying to do like a full loop ourselves, we couldn’t have done it. There’s just not enough money,” he said.
The design called for the county’s line to meet APS fiber at Cholla. “It didn’t make sense for the county to overbuild fiber where there was already going to be a connection point,” Lacapa said. However, they never anticipated that the efforts to connect Winslow to the fiber internet would have taken the time that it has. She said the county also looked early on at a line between Heber-Overgaard and Winslow and found the terrain made it too expensive.
Told that the result looks like Winslow was left in the dark, Layton said, “I can appreciate that perspective, but I think it’s how you look at it.” He said the county understood APS would bring fiber into the area. “This will still come to fruition. It’ll just take a little bit longer,” he said.
Whether APS is bound to deliver is unclear, because neither official could confirm that the arrangement is in writing. ” Asked what would happen if APS decided to drop the project, Lacapa said, “I think that would really damage the relationship between APS and the county.” Beyond that there is nothing governing the implementation of this project by APS.
APS remains committed to leveraging our fiber-optic infrastructure to support rural connectivity in the Holbrook region,” APS spokesperson Alan Bunnell said in a statement. “While we currently do not have a firm implementation date, we continue to work with the community to bring the project to fruition.” The statement did not mention Winslow or say which route the line will take.
Winslow City Manager David Coolidge told the Tribune that about a month ago that APS had approached the city about a larger easement so the fiber line could connect to the utility’s substation in Winslow. Coolidge said an APS engineer told him the Cholla-to-Winslow segment was already complete. Asked about Coolidge’s account, Bunnell said that was not the case and they currently have existing strands along that route but it would need new and additional fiber for the scope of the project.
Lacapa said the utility was slowed by permitting across the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests. A U.S. Forest Service listing shows an APS fiber line across about 91 miles of the Tonto and Apache-Sitgreaves forests entered review in August 2025. The listing estimated a decision in November 2025 and still shows the project as in progress.
APS is now also looking at reaching Cholla from Flagstaff, Lacapa said. The route matters for Winslow: a line along Interstate 40 would pass through the city, while the route in the Forest Service listing comes up from the south and ends about 28 miles south of Joseph City.
What the other cities have is “middle mile” fiber, the trunk line between communities. The county does not sell internet service; providers lease strands and build the “last mile” to homes and businesses. “The highway is built. You can get your car with an ISP and drive on it,” Layton said.
Lacapa said public ownership keeps costs down for providers. “Because it’s publicly owned, we’re not leasing at a profit,” she said. However, that will not be true for the strands that make it to Winslow. Towns on the county’s route could also add their own spurs at the county’s negotiated construction rate, she said, and Taylor ran one to its airport industrial park while Show Low connected several municipal facilities. Another rate not guaranteed for the construction in Winslow since APS will own that fiber.
Layton said the fiber replaced a slow microwave link between the county complex and the sheriff’s office in Holbrook. It also lets dispatchers move to terminals in Show Low with almost no loss of service if Holbrook goes down, he said. It makes the system much more robust in case something happens so that the county can still deliver those critical services and have access to their network.
Winslow is not on that network. Asked how the city would be assured the same low lease rates on a line APS owns, Lacapa said Winslow’s density makes it cheaper for providers to serve than outlying areas so competition between internet service providers would be a strong force in keep prices low.
A separate federal program, Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment, pays providers to build the last mile. The Arizona Commerce Authority awards that money to providers, and none goes to the county.
Lacapa said the state split the county’s non-tribal land into five project areas. Three, covering Snowflake, Taylor, Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside and Heber-Overgaard, went to Wecom Fiber, which has said its Navajo County award is $21 million to connect about 6,600 homes and businesses with fiber.
The other two areas, Winslow and Holbrook-Joseph City-Woodruff, went to SpaceX, Lacapa said. “I anticipate if it’s SpaceX, it’s going to be satellite,” she said. SpaceX has not contacted the county, she said, while Wecom has been talking with the county about leasing its fiber since it applied.
This shift from allowing only fiber companies access to government taxpayer funded subsidies to also allowing less robust less fast satellite internet companies to also bid came during the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term as president. Elon Musk who owns SpaceX, was heading the Department of Government Efficiency and one of the changes to the federal government the world’s richest man took, resulted in Winslow not getting fiber internet because of its access to satellite internet from Musk’s for-profit company. Winslow had access to satellite internet prior so this means that it resulted in Winslow getting no new options or opportunities for competition in internet providers.
Layton said satellite makes sense in some places and the county uses it at a few sites. “It’s a great technology,” he said but he questioned whether it could support large commercial and residential needs.
The Commerce Authority originally expected construction to begin in early 2026. Lacapa said contract awards were delayed and the agency was cleared last month to begin issuing them. She expects providers to contact the county about permits before the end of the year. WeCom has already been in contact with the county for building out these systems.
Other routes into Winslow have also stalled. The Arizona Department of Transportation has been installing fiber conduit along I-40 between the California line and Flagstaff but not east of it, this is because the project was canceled amid a budget crisis in 2024. Sparklight owns fiber between Heber-Overgaard and Payson and Lacapa said the company is still interested in linking to the county network but is focused on its own federally funded areas first.
There is no firm plan to connect north to tribal networks, though Layton said the county has positioned its network so the tribes can connect when they are ready. Told that Winslow’s connection appears to be up to APS, Lacapa did not disagree. “A lot of things are when it comes to economic development in this area,” she said.
