The state of Virginia announced $41 million in grants to cover some of the costs of broadband deployments to unserved areas this week. Awards were made through the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI) and went to 10 individual counties and planning districts, who will partner with broadband providers on the builds.
Two major providers — Comcast and Brightspeed — are among the partner providers.
The Comcast build will be in Botetourt County. The county was awarded $395,411 to go toward buildout costs.
The Brightspeed build will be in Rockbridge County. The county won two separate awards — one for $975,865 for the Brightspeed build and one for $1.2 million for a build with BARC Connects, the broadband unit of electric cooperative BARC.
The awards to Comcast’s and Brightspeed’s partners were the two smallest made in this round of the VATI program.
The two largest awards were $12.2 million for Thomas Jefferson Planning District for a build with Firefly, the broadband unit of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, and $10.3 million for Spotsylvania County for a build with local provider Port 80.
Most of the grants were for amounts between $1 million and $5 million.
Local electric company broadband subsidiaries are the providers for approximately half of the awards made, measured by dollar amounts. The companies include BARC Connects; Firefly; Empower, a unit of Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative; and Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative.
Demand for funding was high. The state received 25 applications requesting more than $170 million in this round.
Virginia Broadband Grants
The projects awarded this week will be funded, in large part, through additional funding sources. Total costs for all 10 projects are estimated at $116.7 million.
A full list of providers partnering in this round of VATI awards includes:
- BARC Connects
- Brightspeed
- Comcast
- Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative
- Empower
- FiberLync
- Firefly
- PemTel
- Port 80
- ZiTEL
Additional details on the projects, including county or planning district, partner provider and grant amount, can be found at this link.
Additional information about Virginia broadband, including links to state funding resources, state specific Telecompetitor coverage and more can be found on the Telecompetitor Broadband Nation webpage for the state.
