Arkansas cable reels on the I-40 and I-30 lanes

Two cable makers in the state

AmerCable's site says its El Dorado facility in south Arkansas is where the majority of its manufacturing takes place. Priority Wire and Cable describes itself as a modern manufacturer selling to wholesale distribution and lists its address in North Little Rock. Prysmian lists a location in Paragould in the northeast, but its contact page doesn't say what that site is, so we don't count it as a plant.

Cable made in Arkansas mostly ships out of state, but some of it is installed here, and the reels stay behind with the contractors and owners who used it. Those are the empties Arkansas yards end up selling, along with reels from every other maker whose cable has been pulled in the state.

Utilities and the grid work behind the reels

EIA's 2024 table of Arkansas's top retailers is led by Entergy Arkansas, then Southwestern Electric Power Company, Mississippi County Electric Cooperative, Oklahoma Gas and Electric and Carroll Electric Cooperative. Entergy covers most of the state, SWEPCO the west and southwest, OG&E the Fort Smith area, and Carroll Electric a big share of the fast-growing northwest corner.

Northwest Arkansas, from Fayetteville through Springdale and Rogers to Bentonville, has grown quickly, and growth means underground distribution to new subdivisions and commercial sites. Mississippi County, in the northeast Delta, has seen large industrial projects, and big plants mean big cable. Across the rest of the state, co-ops run long rural lines through the Ozarks, the Ouachitas and the Delta.

The freight lanes through Arkansas

Arkansas is a pass-through state for a lot of truck freight. I-40 runs from West Memphis through Little Rock and Fort Smith toward Oklahoma City. I-30 runs from Little Rock southwest through Texarkana to Dallas. I-49 runs north and south through the northwest corner, and I-55 clips the northeast on its way from Memphis to St. Louis. I-530 connects Little Rock with Pine Bluff.

Because so many trailers already run those lanes, a reel lot near an interstate can sometimes go out with less empty mileage than one in a state with fewer through routes. A West Memphis lot is effectively a Memphis lot. A Texarkana lot is close to Shreveport and east Texas. A Fort Smith lot is a short drive from Tulsa.

What Arkansas buyers ask for

Buyers here are a mix. Electricians and small contractors in central and northwest Arkansas often want a handful of 30 to 42 inch reels for moving building wire between jobs. Line contractors want matched sets of 60s and 72s. Oil and gas and industrial contractors in the south sometimes want heavy reels that can take armored or large-diameter cable, and those need sound flanges and a solid arbor hole.

Fiber builders are the fastest-growing group. Tell us the cable's outside diameter so we can match the drum; a fiber reel with too small a drum can damage the cable on it.

Why reel size changes the freight per reel

Freight is paid by the trailer, not by the reel, so the number of reels a trailer holds decides how much of the haul each one carries. Sonoco's packing guide gives the maximum for a 53-foot van by flange: about 100 reels with 48 inch flanges, 39 with 60 inch flanges and 22 with 72 inch flanges.

Put plainly, a 72 inch reel takes up the trailer space of about four and a half 48 inch reels. On a run from Jonesboro to Little Rock that difference is small money. On a run from El Dorado to a buyer in Kansas City it is most of the price. That's why we ask where the reels are going as well as where they are, and why big reels sell best close to home.

BEAD in Arkansas

Arkansas received $1,024,303,993.86 in NTIA's June 2023 BEAD allocation. The unserved homes are spread across the hills of the Ozarks and Ouachitas and the flat farm country of the Delta and the south. Fiber through rough, wooded country means poles, long spans and a lot of reel handling; in the Delta it means long straight runs and big distances between homes.

Either way, the reels add up. When a builder finishes a county, the staging yard holds a stack of empties, and the next county's crew may want them. We put those two sides together.

Selling from a rural Arkansas yard

Plenty of Arkansas yards are down county roads with soft shoulders and tight turns. If a 53-foot trailer can't get in, a shorter truck or a hotshot with a flatbed may. If there's no forklift, someone has to bring one or the reels have to be small enough to handle by hand. Tell us what you have and we'll work out the cheapest way to move the reels.

Spring rains can make unpaved yards impassable for a heavy truck. Winter is usually mild, but ice storms do hit and can close roads in the hills for a day or two.

1. 01

   Count and size

   Flange x traverse x drum and a count for each size.

2. 02

   Photograph

   The pile, one stencil per size and any damage.

3. 03

   Describe the access

   Road surface, gate width, turnaround room and loading equipment.

4. 04

   Get the quote

   We price the lot with the freight and arrange the truck once you agree.