Polk County approves funding for additional high-speed internet service

Contract awarded to Skyrunner, Inc. to provide fiber optic to homes

POLK COUNTY—At Monday’s regularly scheduled Polk County Board of Commissioners meeting, it was announced that the county has been awarded funding from the N.C. Department of Information Technology’s ‘Completing Access to Broadband’ program.

Counties that receive funding from the CAB program must agree to provide high-speed service that meets or exceeds 100 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload speeds.

County Manager Marche Pittman explained the vetting process at the meeting, saying an evaluation committee recommended awarding a contract to Skyrunner, Inc. after determining that its proposal represented the best value among the submitted proposals. Skyrunner proposed serving 2,680 locations at a cost of  $3,029 per location.

Pittman said the total cost of the project is $8,117,499.00. Skyrunner, Inc. will have two years to construct the network. The award required a county match of $811,750, and commissioners unanimously approved accepting the award and funding the match.

“I’m excited about how the broadband awards will benefit our citizens,” Pittman said. “Many thanks to all of our partners, including the providers, NCDIT, the N.C. Legislature, and the Polk County Board of Commissioners for their visionary approach to serving the broadband needs of our community.”

Polk County has now appropriated $1,061,750 county dollars to bring in more than $21,000,000 of state and federal funds. Collectively, the funding will provide fiber optic capabilities to more than 7,000 homes in unserved and underserved areas in the county.

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