Virginia awards $17 million for broadband to localities in Southwest and Southside

Residents in some of Virginia’s most sparsely populated and most difficult topography are a step closer to getting high-speed broadband.

Virginia is granting $41.6 million to multiple localities that applied for funds to deliver internet access, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office announced this week. Localities in Southwest and Southside Virginia will receive about $17 million.

“Broadband is as critical today as electricity was in the last century, and the Youngkin Administration is committed to ensuring that no communities are at risk of being left behind,” said Bryan Horn, chief broadband advisor and Virginia Department of Housing and community development director. “Once we achieve universal broadband, we will be able to focus our efforts and funding on promoting digital literacy and affordability in regard to access.”

The state Department of Housing and Community Development received 25 applications asking for more than $170 million in funding from the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative, better known as VATI. The Charlottesville-based Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission ($12.2 million) and Spotsylvania County ($10.3 million) received the largest sums.

In Southwest Virginia, Franklin County received $4.5 million, with $4.2 million going to Giles County. Alleghany County was granted $2.3 million. Rockbridge County got two grants totaling $2.2 million, and Botetourt County is due about $375,000. The Southside Planning Commission District — which covers Halifax, Mecklenburg and Brunswick counties, along with South Boston and South Hill — will receive $3.4 million.

The Thomas Jefferson district is composed of 10 counties including Southside locations Appomattox, Buckingham and Campbell. It was unclear how the money would break out per county in that district.

Alleghany County Administrator Reid Walters said Thursday that the grant will address a crucial need in the county’s western region. Walters said 81% of the county, about 12,000 addresses, has broadband access. The remaining 19% of addresses are in a 40-square-mile area by the West Virginia border. A telephone company in the neighboring state is the landline provider, he said. The area’s “challenging topography” is “affected by the Green Bank Observatory’s ‘national radio quiet zone’ federal regulations,” according to the grant application .

Walters and Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative CEO Jeff Ahearn have teamed twice in two years to apply for the grant and learned on Thursday that they had received it this time around.

“That area of the county has had communications issues for years,” Walters said. “Of course, there’s no cell service out there. It’s had spotty service with landlines and even problems with power, so this is going to provide those people with tools that they’ve needed for years. Craig-Botetourt … is really the big one that we need to thank for partnering with us to do this.”

Alleghany communities Crows and Hematite are home to most of the people doing without service, he said.

“This should create universal broadband coverage for the county,” Walters said. “There are a couple of houses up there that are somehow on Dominion’s lines, so we’ll figure that part of it out, but this is the 19% we need to provide universal broadband coverage county-wide.”

Walters added: “The big thing is, the safety issues we have in that part of the county [are] worrisome, and that’s going to alleviate those problems, which is huge.”

Giles County was able to celebrate more than its state grant of $4.2 million. It also received a $700,000 grant for the project from the Appalachian Regional Commission, and with other funds supplied by its ISP partner, Pemtel Telephone Cooperative, the county wound up with more than $5.5 million, County Administrator Chris McKlarney said.

The money will fund about 100 miles of cable — 33 of it going underground — in the Virginia 42 and Virginia 100 corridors, McKlarney said. It can reach about 630 residences and businesses when complete, he said.

Giles County, too, applied twice. McKlarney said that the Department of Housing and Community Development provided key feedback that helped improve the grant writing this time around. The department suggested using existing fiber-optic resources instead of trying to build the project from scratch, and working to reduce costs by, for example, using existing infrastructure, McKlarney said.

“Working with a local telephone cooperative is always beneficial there,” he said. “They’ll do some of the work in-house, some of it will be contracted. So those guys got really creative and put together a great application.”

As in Alleghany County, the terrain is difficult and the population sparse in unserved areas of Giles. The grants still will not cover all of Giles County’s needs, McKlarney said. He expected the county to apply for more funding from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, known as BEAD.

“The fiber now is just like other utilities — water and sewer utilities,” McKlarney said. “It’s very important for people to have in their homes. And we’re a rural community, which makes it really even more important for people to have access to broadband, whether it’s telemedicine that’s becoming more and more popular, and particularly in rural areas, where access is tough. So we believe that’s going to have a real impact there.

“You’ve seen Carilion, which serves our area, definitely becoming more interested in offering more telemedicine options, but those options don’t help if you don’t have broadband.”

Botetourt County and Comcast worked together for the grant announced this week. Their project will serve 62 locations, including 56 residences, in Blue Ridge, according to information from county spokeswoman Tiffany Bradbury.

It will be the fourth VATI-funded project in Botetourt, which has received $5.2 million from the state program for projects with Lumos and the Craig-Botetourt Electric Co-op. The county and various providers have provided about $7.3 million in additional funding, according to Bradbury.

“We are very thankful to DHCD and our internet service providers for helping to make broadband a reality for our residents,” Bradbury wrote in an email. “We will continue to work with DHCD and our internet service providers to explore other opportunities to continue our broadband journey to ensure that our residents, even in the most rural parts of our community, have this necessary utility.”

The commonwealth since 2017 has invested more than $850 million to connect more than 388,000 homes, businesses and community anchors in 80 localities, according to the governor’s news release.

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