By Steve Terry, Past chairman, Patrick County Broadband Committee
A special meeting of the Patrick County Board of Supervisors will be held on Tuesday, May 26, at 6 p.m., in the third-floor meeting room of the Patrick County Administration Building in Stuart.
The board will hold a working meeting with broadband project team to discuss critical issues jeopardizing the county’s broadband project. Questions from the public permitted.
Our new County Administrator, Mr. McGuinness, is working hard to get the broadband project impacting most of Patrick County back on track. He has asked me to help spread the word.
As everyone probably realizes, our project is behind schedule. It is seriously at risk of failure. This does not mean that RiverStreet Networks, our Internet Service Provider and county partner is not committed to solving these issues or to blame, but they are having some issues. The team is working on a plan to overcome difficulties, but looming is a funding deadline requiring completion at the end of this year. A funding extension is possible with a new required completion date of June 30, 2027.
A requirement for the extension is a plan assuring this new deadline will be met. The entire project team is being summoned by Mr. McGuinness for a Supervisors Working Session at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 26 in Patrick County Administration Building, third-floor courtroom. He has requested that West Piedmont Planning District Commission, (WPPDC), RSN, and AEP attend.
The WPPDC is being paid by Patrick County to manage our project. AEP is installing fiber on mainline poles with excess capacity provided to be leased to RSN. RSN installs fiber from AEP splice points to homes, hooks them up and provides broadband and some optional services including home phone.
Citizens Telephone will also attend to discuss a possible reassignment from RSN to them, of portions or possibly all mountaintop locations currently in the RSN contract.
Citizens Telephone serves numerous locations in this area adjoining RSNs designated locations and could extend existing fiber quickly providing service. RSN must await AEP installation of middle-mile fiber after they relocate some poles for the Vesta U.S. 58 four-lane project. This requires some rough grading before required pole relocations. In turn, this fiber is not scheduled to be turned over to RSN for completion to homes and businesses until February 2027.
A further complication is that RSN and AEP both require permits from the Parkway in order serve Patrick locations on the west side. All of this means RSN may not be able to meet even the extended completion date. The better option may be for the county to push the team to reassign these locations to Citizens. If this concerns you, please make your voice heard.
Other areas of the county are also at risk if issues are not quickly resolved by the project team. Solutions in much of the county are less obvious than what appears to be the case on the mountain.
The public is invited to attend and to ask questions. Your attendance and show of support are very important if you want our county to have any chance of a fiber internet system with optional phone and other services.
Many love Starlink, and it certainly is far superior to other currently available alternatives. But fiber offers many advantages over satellite including speeds, cost, longevity, maintenance, and relatively cheap electronics upgrades providing huge capacity increases without disturbing existing fiber optic cables. Many businesses, schools, and other entities, even homeowners will benefit. Some people and jobs may leave, and many will not come if the county does not have fiber available. Home and land prices and county economic opportunities are all impacted by having fiber available. If you want to know more about advantages of fiber, many experts have information you can Google.
I must express some opinions concerning RSN. I chaired our eight-member Patrick County Broadband Committee for over six years, until it was disbanded by the previous county administrator and BOS at their first meeting in 2025. I have interacted frequently with the RSN team and continue to do so unofficially. I continue to appreciate many things they have done at their own expense, to assist our county with broadband.
Years ago, they made presentations and provided helpful guidance which the committee shared at BOS meetings. After they were selected as the ISP partner for the county, a grant requirement, they played a key role in many ways. They committed to invest millions of dollars in grant matching funds, making up for the county’s lack of normal levels of matching funds shelled out by many other grant applicants. Their team of professionals provided experience and knowledge our county required to win tough competitions for grants. They and then EDA Director, Mr. Bryce Simmons, worked day and night preparing grant applications in time to meet submission dates.
Funding applications from both state and federal programs were successful in making this project possible. Thanks largely to the RSN team, we still expect completion of our state-of-the-art fiber broadband and telephone system costing over $55 million. While our current situation is not acceptable, they remain a valuable partner and likely our only hope of providing county-wide services in the forceable future. I will let their management answer questions related to issues that have caused the delays, but it is apparent that cost increases since the grant awards in 2022 must play a part.
The project team, which includes our county officials, WPPDC, AEP, RSN, must collaborate if we are to succeed. I am confident with encouragement from our citizens this will happen. This may be your only opportunity to have your questions answered and to express your desires. I look forward to seeing you there.
