Broadband authority expands wireless to 3,000 houses | Local Government

Much more than 3,000 underserved Albemarle County inhabitants now have access to broadband net via a partnership concerning the Albemarle County Broadband Authority and Shentel. 

Applying Coronavirus Aid, Reduction, and Economic Security Act Coronavirus Relief Fund funds, the authority worked with Shentel to convey its Beam World wide web fixed wireless services to the county.

Now, Shetel has seven mobile web-sites covering extra than 3,000 underserved county people.

“We are only focusing on underserved households, homes that never have accessibility to common cable modem company or fiber to the dwelling, and of course we are only targeting underserved residences with a sensible prospect of getting the Beam sign,” said Dan Meenan, the vice president of wi-fi community improvement at Shentel, to the authority previously this 7 days at its virtual meeting.

Shentel responded to an RFP that the broadband authority issued previous yr. ABBA had at first prepared to use its very own funding for the task, but was capable to use $697,194 of CARES CRF cash, which contributed to 6 of the 7 wireless web pages.

At all of the websites — at Crozet, Rio Road, Carter’s Mountain, Cobham, Airport/Joshua Operate, Progress Mills and James River — cells ended up connected to current towers.

“Five of the seven web pages that we hooked up to in the county were created right before the latest wireless plan, so they’re comparatively substantially taller constructions, frequently with substantial elevation to start out, like the Sophisticated Mills tower, like the Airport tower there off of [U.S.] 29,” Meenan mentioned. “The Crozet tower and the Scottsville tower were being a bit atypical. Ordinarily, we are not able to get ample underserved residences handed with shorter towers to justify the value.”