The Shadow
LOW MOOR – A project to expand broadband access in Alleghany County was hailed Wednesday as a big boost to economic development efforts in the Highlands.
U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, joined Ntelos executives Wednesday morning at the Alleghany Highlands YMCA to announce the start of a $16 million project to bring broadband services and infrastructure to unserved and underserved areas of Alleghany County.
Broadband is a term used to describe types of high-speed Internet access. Access to broadband opens up many possibilities such as voice services, high-speed data services, video services, and interactive information delivery services. Such services can change how communities connect to each other, work, process information, and provide services.
Boucher, who is running for re-election in November, helped Ntelos secure an $8 million federal grant for the Alleghany County broadband project.
The grant, originally announced in February, comes through federal stimulus money administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service. Ntelos is providing an $8 million match.
The local project will provide high-speed Internet services to more than 4,000 homes and 200 businesses in the county.
Ntelos will construct a fiber-to-the-premise network to bring telephone, Internet and video services to homes and businesses.
“The new fiber-to-the-premise Internet access service will improve the quality of life in the region, providing residents and businesses in Alleghany County with new opportunities for communications, education, entertainment shopping and conducting business online,” Boucher said.
“Local entrepreneurs will be able to enhance their businesses with online tools and reach new customers, and residents will have the option of telecommuting.”
Boucher added, “And the new high-speed Internet services will ensure the region is still able to attract technology-based businesses, requiring widespread availability of high-speed Internet services.”
Materials for the new fiber network are beginning to arrive at Ntelos’ service center in the Mallow area of Alleghany County.
It is estimated that construction of the network will employ 40 people and help create permanent jobs in Alleghany County after completion.
Ntelos estimates the project with be 66 percent complete in two years. The company expects to begin adding customers to the new network by the end of this year. Discounted bundle packages will soon be offered to entice customers to pre-register for the new services.
The service area will reach almost 9,200 county residents in an estimated 4,216 households.
In addition, 233 businesses are expected to benefit from the project. Ntelos will install fiber-optic cable in portions of Iron Gate, Low Moor and Glen Wilton.
Cable will also be installed along Griffith Road, Forty-Two Road, Virginia State Route 600, Douthat Park Road, Rich Patch Road, Moss Run, Johnson Creek Road, Indian Draft Road and Dunlap Creek Road.
Covington, Clifton Forge and most of Iron Gate are excluded from the project area because they are already classified as “served” by broadband under federal stimulus guidelines.
Boucher said the project will also benefit 36 existing community facilities, including Blue Ridge Cancer Care, the Boiling Springs Fire Department and Rescue Squad, Brian Center Nursing Care, Jackson River Family Practice, the Virginia Department of Transportation office in Pinehurst, the Dunlap Fire Department and Rescue Squad, the Falling Spring Fire Department and Rescue Squad the Sharon Fire Department and the Alleghany Highlands YMCA.
Ntelos’ chief executive officer, Jim Hyde, said the broadband project is part of the company’s long-term commitment to the Highlands.
The company was founded in 1897 as the Clifton Forge-Waynesboro Telephone Co.
“Since the company was founded in 1897 in Clifton Forge, Ntelos has embarked on a long-term journey to achieve its status as a leader in the communications industry and in the regions we serve,” Hyde said.
David Kleppinger, executive director of the Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Corp., said Ntelos’ new broadband infrastructure “is absolutely critical to the economic future of the Alleghany Highlands.”
Kleppinger deemed broadband “critical” to ongoing efforts to bring high-paying jobs to the county through the establishment of an underground data security center in the Low Moor area. Broadband is also essential to telemedicine, he said.
Telemedicine is a fast-growing application of clinical medicine that involves the transfer of information interactive audiovisual media for the purpose of consulting, and sometimes remote medical procedures or examinations.
“It’s all about access and connections … and that is what fiber and broadband will afford us,” Kleppinger said.
Steve Bennett, chairman of the Alleghany County Board of Supervisors, said once the project is complete, Alleghany County will be one of the few rural areas in Virginia that will offer a fiber network capable of supporting future high-bandwidth applications.
“We do see this as a very large step in the overall economic development of the Alleghany Highlands,” he said.
Boucher said that more than 15 years ago, he began encouraging local governments in his district to find ways to deploy broadband networks.
“My goal in making this recommendation was to set our region apart in comparison to other rural areas of the nation, to make us more attractive than the typical rural region to industries looking to expand their operations into new locations, and to create technology-based jobs for Southwest Virginians,” he said.
According to the National E-Commerce Extension Initiative, broadband deployment in rural parts of the United States lags behind the rest of the country. Broadband options are generally more limited and more costly in many rural areas due to low population densities, topographical barriers and geographical distances.
Boucher said the $8 million to Ntelos is part of more than $85 million in grants that have been awarded in his district this year for broadband deployment.
Boucher’s district stretches from Alleghany County to the coalfields in Southwest Virginia.
