By Steve Terry
The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD VATI) grant applications submitted on September 14 for funding broadband improvements in the state can be downloaded from the DHCD website at VATI Grant Applications.
I have tabulated below summary information for the two applications submitted for our county.
The West Piedmont Planning District Commission is administering both multi-county grants.
Charter Communications is the internet service provider (ISP) for the proposed project in Patrick and Carroll counties, and RiverStreet Networks (RSN) is the ISP for the application for Patrick, Henry and Franklin counties.
In Patrick, the Charter project would serve new locations near Ararat and Groundhog Mountain and accelerate locations which they will serve under RDOF auction awards.
The RSN project would include locations near Patrick Springs, Woolwine, Vesta and Meadows of Dan.
Grant winners should be announced around the end of December. Both projects will provide fiber to the premises (FTTP) service. Competition is stiff for these grants, with 57 applications representing 84 localities and requesting a total of $943 million, well above the present available state grant funding limit.
Both of our grant applications appear to have good chances of success, although there is some concern that the Charter application is requesting a 52.6 percent DHCD contribution while many applications are providing more local funds and asking for a lower percentage from the state which improves chances.
The RSN application would appear more competitive with the lower DHCD funding percent enabled largely by the AEP contribution and installation of over 100 miles of middle-mile fiber on their electric poles in Patrick in addition to fiber in Henry and Franklin.
