Hi there, Floyd Forum readers! Welcome to a new week! (I know it’s Wednesday! Unburying oneself after a holiday tends to mean the first half of the week simply evaporates.) I’m excited about today’s edition, first because it contains very good news for residents of Floyd County, and second because I think it represents my first “scoop” as an independent reporter. As far as I know, this grant hasn’t yet been reported in other local news outlets, so technically, this newsletter is *breaking*!
I hope you enjoy reading this run-down of a new fiber deployment in the county. I’ll be in Floyd for the Town Council meeting tomorrow, and have coverage to you all by Friday evening. By the end of the week, I’m also hoping to have one more feature-like story, but I won’t count my chickens before sources return my emails. :)
Have a great night, and thanks again for being here. As always, you can reach me at aspinksdugan@gmail.com or find me on Twitter @AshleyinFloyd.
-Ashley
Floyd secures $311,000 grant as part of CARES Act-funded broadband program
On Oct. 7, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that he would allocate $30 million to support the deployment of high-speed broadband connections. Floyd County applied for and will receive $311,000 of that funding to provide more than 50 people with essential internet service. The statewide “Fast Track” Broadband Program is funded by Virginia’s allocation of federal CARES Act money.
The Floyd County Board of Supervisors discussed the county’s potential application for grant funding at its Oct. 27 meeting. Community & Economic Development Director Lydeana Martin told the board at the time that the county had submitted its application two weeks prior and hadn’t heard anything from the state. County officials were coordinating with Citizens Telephone Cooperative to plan and implement the broadband expansion. The cooperative would complete the actual construction, but Martin said because of the ticking clock on spending CARES Act money, it needed a clear answer as soon as possible. Citizens said it needed a definitive “yes” from the state by Oct. 30 in order to ensure it could complete the work before funding expired on Dec. 25. At 1 p.m. on the 30th, Martin said, the approval came through.
According to Citizens Chief Executive Officer Greg Sapp, “This was a fast moving project and we only had a few days to come up with a list of customers that we could construct in eight weeks. We called hundreds of customers to get commitments and the customers we were able to speak to made the list of 53.” The 53 people Citizens will connect to broadband will be able to access speeds of 1 Gig download/500 MB upload. “We appreciate Lydeana's efforts in making this happen. It will definitely make a difference in the lives of these customers,” Sapp said.
Because the project is supported by CARES Act funding, the county must be able to classify the costs associated with deployment as “pandemic-related.” As such, Citizens will focus on deploying to customers that require internet access because of new distance learning or telehealth needs, or because they work from home. It will also prioritize county residents with the longest driveways, the application said.
In August, Floyd County students returned to school using a largely remote model. Nearly a quarter of students opted for the county’s all-online schooling option. The county is home to 1,200 self-employed people who rely on various websites and e-commerce capabilities to do business.
The county also has a population that trends older, meaning people who live there are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection and should avoid leaving the house whenever possible. Reliable internet connections can sometimes help these folks access the healthcare they need via video conference. Video-chatting can mitigate social isolation, which tends to have a particularly deleterious effect on the elderly.
As Floyd County described in its Fast Track application, the locality faces specific challenges to accessing broadband even under the best circumstances. And being unable to connect to the internet during the pandemic could have dire consequences in the rural county. Floyd has a high death rate from COVID-19. One in every thousand residents has died from the virus. One in fifty Floyd County residents has been infected. Soon, the advent of flu season could cause a so-called “twindemic” in the region, which is already facing overcrowded hospitals.
Citizens has invested significantly in building out its broadband network over the past few years. But deploying broadband in areas with low population density is difficult. A lot of labor and materials are required to build the network from house to house when people live far apart. And there are a limited number of reachable customers in the service area, meaning return on investment is small. It can take cooperatives like Citizens nearly a decade to recoup their costs after a deployment.
About 97% percent of Floyd County residents live outside of town limits—many on unsurfaced public roads, which comprise half of all roads in the county. Landowners in the county may have a fiber line that reaches the end of their driveway. But given that many driveways are hundreds, if not thousands, of feet long, this doesn’t alleviate their problems. Deploying a fiber line the many extra yards to reach a customer’s house can be costly. According to the application, the average cost is $2.60/foot.
Citizens has agreed to pay for the first 200 linear feet of line along a driveway or private street, for a contribution of $520 per new customer of $26,000 for the entire project. The Fast Track grant will fund the rest of the necessary buildouts.
Way back in October, Locust Grove District Supervisor Lauren Yoder expressed frustration with the timeline of the state initiative, saying it’s going to result in at least some waste of federal money. “Our federal government is forcing people to spend money so fast, there can’t be any oversight,” Yoder said. Last week, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner shared similar concerns about the tight deadline to spend money. Warner highlighted broadband projects as an especially important use of CARES Act funding. More people could ultimately be helped, he said, if the U.S. Treasury Department would extend the deadline.
“Lack of broadband access has prevented Americans in underserved communities from meaningfully participating in the digital economy even before the pandemic,” Warner wrote in a letter Sec. Steve Mnuchin. “Under current circumstances, this lack of access threatens to have a significant and potentially long-lasting impact on existing economic, health, and educational disparities.”