Just outside Gig City in Chattanooga, some rural areas of Hamilton County still lack high-speed internet service.
But for the second time in as many months, Hamilton County commissioners have agreed to help fund a cooperative seeking to bridge that digital divide and broaden broadband service into the northern part of the county.
County commissioners voted Wednesday to provide $40,000 as part of a $525,129 project planned by an affiliate of the Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative to serve 128 households on Leggett Road and Downey Drive atop Walden’s Ridge with high-speed internet connections.
Through BTC Communications, Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative is planning to extend its fiber optic network up the mountain to serve the rural area, provided the proposal gains approval for its $400,000 grant application from the Tennessee Emergency Broadband Fund that uses some of the state’s share of the federal American Rescue Plan money.
“Some of the people who moved to Leggett Road thought they were moving to Gig City, and they just thought that everyone in Hamilton County would be covered by EPB,” Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger said during a commission meeting Wednesday.
But the state has restricted EPB to serving only its electric service territory, and Sequachee Valley Electric, which serves Leggett Road, does not offer broadband coverage in that rural part of Hamilton County.
Staff file Photo by Robin Rudd/Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative General Manager Charlie Boring, left, and Engineering Coordinator Matthew Boynton discuss the challenges of bringing internet service to a rural area. Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative has added gig service in Sequatchie and Bledsoe counties.“There are some at-home businesses and people trying to complete college courses that don’t now have broadband access and actually have to come down off of Leggett Road to come closer to town to get internet service,” Coppinger said.
The county mayor thanked Bledsoe Telephone Coop “for making these folks’ lives better.”
Matt Boynton, the engineering coordinator for Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative, said BTC Communications is seeking to serve part of Hamilton County as one of a half dozen counties in Southeast Tennessee where the telephone cooperative hopes to expand broadband service, if the state grant requests are approved. As a telephone cooperative, Bledsoe Telephone is able to serve with its BTC Communications service territories that aren’t covered in its rural phone coop area.
“We’ve had 65 letters of support from the people in this area, and the folks have been very excited about the possibility of having that fiber optic connection,” said Boynton said.
The 8.5-mile-long fiber optic line would provide high-speed internet connections at an average cost of $4,102 per household, but 70% of that cost would come from the state grant and nearly 10% would come from the county.
Last month, Hamilton County commissioners approved a $615,671 match for Volunteer Electric Cooperative to expand broadband service to 1,395 more homes and businesses around Birchwood. That $6.2 million project proposed in northern Hamilton County is part of more than $125 million of projects that Volunteer Energy Cooperative is proposing to bring its fiber-optic network into underserved parts of eight counties in East Tennessee.
“Every single one of our citizens needs high-speed Wi-Fi, and thank you for your services in helping make this possible,” Hamilton County Commissioner Steve Highlander told the Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative leaders Wednesday.
EPB, which secured a $111 million federal grant in 2010 to build its fiber optic network, has provided high-speed internet connections to all of its electric customers in the Chattanooga area for nearly a decade.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.
Staff file Photo by Ben Benton/Bledsoe Telephone Cooperative technician Houston Thomas checks the connections at a test home for digital internet, television and phone service in Pikeville. BTC is working to complete the first phase of the project in Bledsoe and Sequatchie counties.