Representatives from the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) Office of Broadband, Appalachian Power (AEP), RiverStreet Networks, and Charter Communications provided a broadband update at an April 14 Patrick County Board of Supervisors meeting.
In 2019, DHCD Office of Broadband Director Dr. Tamarah Holmes said the department funded a broadband engineering study and design for the county.
“We really see this as a precursor to the county really getting into applying for broadband funding from the DHCD,” she said.
In 2020, the county applied for and received a grant of almost $800,000 to expand fixed wireless through the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative (VATI) program. Although the grant agreement was supposed to last one year, the project was canceled.
“The project was canceled because the year in which you were all going to get started in actually have fixed wireless within the county, we got a huge plus up in funding for the program,” she said.
Instead, RiverStreet Networks, the wireless partner, and the county leadership at the time decided to pursue the more reliable wireline connection.
“At that point it was agreed upon by the county and the county administrator at the time as well as RiverStreet to look at doing a fiber build. So, that’s when you all transition from what would have been a full county-wide wireless project to looking at a county fiber project,” Holmes said.
In 2022, Patrick County received a $2.9 million VATI grant with matching funds for a Charter Communications project. It also received funding for a $100 million regional project that includes several neighboring counties.
“That project was awarded with RiverStreet. That project started in September 2022 getting under contract with us, and the project is slated to be done in 2026,” she said.
Holmes said the county also applied for another grant with the West Piedmont Planning District Commission (WPPDC) to focus on regional broadband coverage. RiverStreet is undertaking that project.
“In 2023 that project actually allows you all to get as close as possible to universal coverage in the county. That grant just got underway in February of last year and is slated to end around the same time as your 2022 grant,” she said.
The final grant mentioned is the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant, a $700,000 award from ARC.
“It’s a total grant of $1.5 million including match,” Holmes said.
Holmes then provided summaries of the individual broadband projects:
Appalachian Power
With the VA3 project, which encompasses Patrick, Henry, and Franklin counties, AEP External Affairs Manager Rob Mann said there are still about 2.17 miles remaining, with 118.59 fiber miles completed.
In Patrick County, the Stella project is nearly complete, with 26.99 miles finished out of 30.10 total miles.
The 24-mile Stuart-Floyd project “is just kicking off this week, so you’ll see some activity in the area. Stuart-Willis Gap Patrick have construction prints with the contractor, and there are some challenges getting the permit applications approved, so that one in particular has been resubmitted,” he said.
Construction prints for the 13.90-mile Dobyns-Patrick project are in progress, and AEP will need to apply for permits.
“On our distribution make-ready work, if you pay attention to the Stuart Floyd the permit has been received on that one for make-ready work,” Mann said.
The Point of Presence (POP) site will be located on AEP-owned property in Woolwine.
“Foundation has been poured, and we’re expecting delivery of that shelter at the end of this month,” he said.
In Patrick County, Mann said 386 poles will be replaced and 338 will be reconfigured.
“It’s quite a bit of work once the review process goes in and the engineering design to make sure the infrastructure’s able to handle the new fiber, there’s a lot of work that goes into that,” he said.
Mann said the Stella area is about 90 percent complete, while the other areas are at zero percent completion.
“We got work to do in Patrick County, so no other miles completed. As far as the total miles in Patrick County that needs to be completed to be built out, it’s 143.2, and out of that currency 30 miles have been completed, so there’s still 113 miles that needs to be constructed for fiber,” he said.
Fiber construction in the Stuart-Willis Gap area is slated to start in the spring, while construction for the Dobyns, Pole Bridge, and Elamsville areas is expected to begin in the summer.
The permitting process with the Blue Ridge Parkway remains a significant challenge.
“We do have a Parkway permit that’s been submitted, but still has a review-type status for that,” Mann said.
AEP is working with RiverStreet on a weekly basis to coordinate splicing designs to ensure both companies can connect their networks effectively.
“It’s a lot of work to come, but we’ve got a lot of folks working on this project currently and it’s got a lot of attention within APCo’s leadership,” he said.
RiverStreet Networks
RiverStreet Chief Operating Officer (COO) Michael Brown said working alongside AEP to connect fiber lines has required some engineering changes, such as adjustments to the type or size of fiber used.
“The result of that is we kind of had to redesign the network a little bit and put in a lot more electronic stations throughout the network than we normally do. In Patrick County, we’d normally have four or five remote stations. In this particular case we’re up to 12 that we’re needing to be able to provide coverage throughout the county,” he said.
Brown said the Patrick County project is part of a larger effort spanning 15 counties in southern Virginia.
“What that means is we allow the capability of being able to connect to everything, businesses and residents, without always having to go out to the internet. If you keep the traffic within your network, it produces latency, and gives a lot better connection times, we even have a lot more resiliency and everything else within the network to be able to do that,” he said.
RiverStreet is under contract to serve about 8,800 locations in Patrick County. It has also submitted Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program applications that could expand its service area if approved.
Brown acknowledged the difficulty of bringing broadband into Patrick County due to geographic and logistical challenges.
“As we’ve been working with our AEP partners trying to get from Gretna all the way over to the farther edge like Woolwine and some of these locations it’s a little bit challenging because it’s quite a distance to go. Working with AEP, we’ve also looked at trying to come up from Stokes County in North Carolina, and that is a faster pathway to success so that’s what we’ve chosen to do,” he said.
The first two routes RiverStreet plans to establish are Shingle Shop and Nettle Ridge.
“Our fiber, one of the routes is already through the state line coming from North Carolina and the other is under construction at this time. We also already have the engineering and permitting underway to be able to extend those from the state line up into these two remote locations,” he said.
This work constitutes phase one of a projected four-phase project.
Phase two will use AEP’s fiber to extend service from Stuart to Woolwine and Bassett, and over to Elamsville, involving 178 miles of fiber and serving 1,245 locations in Woolwine and 964 in Elamsville.
Construction for phase two is expected to start in the first quarter of 2026.
Brown emphasized that the phases will not be completed strictly sequentially.
“It doesn’t mean that it’s a waterfall,” he said. “Actually a lot of these will be in parallel. As much as we possibly can we’re staging them to kind of as AEP completes their fiber we’re trying to make sure that we’re coming right behind them and being able to build our own piece of it.”
Phase three will extend fiber down Pole Bridge Road and to the Oliver Lane Road service area, serving 52 and 902 locations respectively, with construction expected to begin in the second quarter of 2026.
Phase four will extend service from Stuart to Willis Gap, Patrick Springs, Dry Pond, and New Valley. Work in this phase will be delayed slightly due to AEP’s construction schedule.
RiverStreet is delaying plans to extend from New Valley to Vesta due to permitting issues with the Blue Ridge Parkway.
“That’s one where we are trying to avoid it as much as possible, being able to go to any parallel or cross it. There will be some permits that are required there because I can’t stay off of the parkway completely to get up through there,” Brown said.
Construction in the Dry Pond area and toward Vesta is projected to begin in the third quarter of 2026.
Charter Communications
Director of State Government Affairs Joe Prater said most of Charter’s projects are located in the southwestern part of Patrick County.
“There’s about 690 locations with VATI, and we estimated about 873 with RDOF. So, between the two commitments it’s about a little over 1,500 locations,” he said.
Prater said approximately 98 percent of the VATI builds are complete.
“It’s about 13-14 homes along Gunny Sack Trail in Hillsville that unfortunately are subject to a Blue Ridge (Parkway) crossing as well. We tried to go every route possible to see if we could do it without having to cross over the Parkway…and unfortunately there’s no going around it, so we will have to wait until we get that permit back for that area,” he said.
Approximately 75 percent of the RDOF builds are complete. Like the VATI projects, Charter built everything it could except in areas requiring a Parkway permit.
“We anticipate that if we could get that back it will just be a matter of months. We first submitted that permit back in March 2023, they had us make some corrections, we resubmitted it in January 2024, and we still unfortunately have not got that one back yet,” Prater said.
