A broadband expansion project will take place in Henry County in two phases, with the goal of offering fast service to everyone in the county. The project is a collaboration with Appalachian Power.
The project, which has also been extended to Franklin and Patrick Counties, seeks to allow county residents the ability to access reliable Internet connection. While it is a county wide project, many of the residents who will be most affected are located in the rural parts of the county.
County Administrator Dale Wagoner said, “In our case, this will allow us to build fiber to homes currently that have no access to broadband within the county.”
Phase One will allow fiber to be built to residents and businesses with no access to broadband.
“We’re kind of in an interesting situation in Henry County. We have areas that have really good broadband connectivity, and then we have some areas that have zero connectivity. So, phase one will build fiber to the homes and businesses in areas that have zero connectivity to broadband,” Wagoner said.
Phase One will affect more than 3,000 people in the county. It is being completely funded with a Virginia Telecommunications Infrastructure (VATI) grant, a grant shared with Franklin and Patrick counties which came in at about $10.8 million for Henry County. Henry County also committed $4 million to the project and the county’s school division committed $1 million to the project. The Harvest Foundation committed $1.5 million. Matching portions will be provided by the private vendor, RiverStreet Networks which will install, supervise, and provide service for the fiber included in the project, and Appalachian Power, which is helping to deploy the fiber faster and allowing the county to put the fiber on their poles.
“Since they’re electrical utility, they have to go through the regulatory process with the state Corporation Commission, so we’re in that phase now of getting that regulatory approval which could take about six months,” Wagoner said of the project’s timing.
Once that process is completed, the vendor can start building out the fiber, hopefully within six months, and being completed within a year, he said.
Phase Two will affect those who have access to broadband, but it “does not meet the Federal Communication Commission’s definition of broadband. In layman’s terms, it’s people who have internet, they just don’t have really good internet,” Wagoner said.
This phase affects fewer people because some of them will be picked up during Phase One, but Wagoner said it will affect around 800 county residents.
Another VATI grant has been applied for this phase.
“Between the county, the Harvest Foundation, and our school system, we have committed to match for both of those grants, but we’re still waiting for the primary grant to come through,” Wagoner said.
The timing of Phase Two will be about a year after the completion of the first phase, he said.
While there is no formal third phase, there is another “component” to the broadband expansion project, Wagoner said.
“We’re going to promote the affordability aspects of broadband. There are some federal programs that can reduce the cost of internet to our residents with low to moderate income, so that’s kind of a component of Phase One and Two is to make sure those funds get out and people take advantage of the lower price,” he said.
Wagoner said he is excited about the ideas of offering the best internet possible to those who have previously had none.
“We’re building fiber. So, the interesting thing about this is individuals and businesses who have no internet right now, once this first phase is completed, they will have the best internet available of anywhere in the county, and then we’ll kind of work backwards,” Wagoner said. “That’s pretty exciting that we’re going to be able to offer fiber into the homes in our community.”
Monica Hatchett, director of Communications for the county school division, recalled the struggles the division experienced during the pandemic when explaining the school system’s contribution to the project.
“Probably one of our greatest concerns was students who did not have internet at home. Certainly, it’s an issue if you have accessibility but no internet, but even more an issue if there’s not even the possibility of internet. And that is the case in some areas of Henry County,” she said. “We had to think really creatively. We set up Wi-Fi spots so that kids and their families could come to our school parking lots and download things, but obviously that’s still not ideal.”
The school division believes the collaborative project to provide and extend coverage will help address these issues, according to Hatchett, who added the division is “excited to see the project come to fruition.
“We have committed a portion of our dollars to support a community wide effort in conjunction with the local government and the Harvest Foundation to help provide that for the communities in Henry County that don’t have (internet access) available,” she said.
Hatchett hopes that once this project is completed, schools and students alike will be better equipped to navigate remote learning situations, regardless of what the cause for the remote learning may be.
“This is a giant step in the right direction. We learned a lot through the pandemic, and we are prepared if we do ever have to go back to remote learning. If a student needs that option, whether it’s a choice that they and their family make or mandated in some way by illness or inclement weather even, we want to be able to have that opportunity for all of our students,” she said.
As the project progresses, RiverStreet Networks will begin contacting eligible residents with the option to sign up for the service.
