Ben Lomand Communications using $1.8 million grant to connect 265 households in Marion, Franklin counties to broadband

In this photo, Ben Lomand Communications fiber is being placed in a conduit in a past project. Ben Lomand received a $1.8 million USDA grant to extend fiber to residents along the Marion-Franklin county line near Monteagle, Tenn.
In this photo, Ben Lomand Communications fiber is being placed in a conduit in a past project. Ben Lomand received a $1.8 million USDA grant to extend fiber to residents along the Marion-Franklin county line near Monteagle, Tenn.

More than 250 households along the Marion-Franklin county line on Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee will be able to access state-of-the-art broadband, voice and video, as well as a community center outfitted with computers and high-speed internet, thanks to a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Ben Lomand Communications, based in McMinnville, Tennessee, will use the grant to build fiber at its facilities to connect 265 households in a service area on the northernmost shared borders of Marion and Franklin counties, according a release from the USDA. Ben Lomand serves Warren, White, Van Buren and Grundy counties, and parts of Coffee, DeKalb, Rutherford, Franklin and Marion counties.

photo Ben Lomand Communications employee Jeff Carter explains the equipment used in fiber installation at a town hall meeting in Hillsboro, Tenn. Ben Lomand received a $1.8 million USDA grant to extend fiber to residents along the Marion-Franklin county line near Monteagle, Tenn.

"Having access to high-speed broadband is not trite or cliché, it truly is a quality-of-life issue anymore," Ben Lomand CEO Lisa Cope said Monday.

Cope said the grant project is planned for the Jump Off Mountain and Sherwood Road areas near the towns of Sewanee and Monteagle at the Marion-Franklin county line.

As part of a 15 percent match requirement of the grant, Cope said, Ben Lomand will contribute a little more than $320,000 to the project that can connect as many as 265 area households and build a community center where residents can access computers and Wi-Fi free of charge for at least two years.

"We have had a lot of folks over the last several years reaching out to us wanting to know if there was any way that we would consider extending fiber into the area," Cope said.

"Fiber is a tremendous medium and can do so many things as far as communications are concerned, but it's also very costly," she said. "It's probably as bulletproof as it comes for remote areas, so with the grant opportunity that just creates the ability for us to meet the needs of the folks in the area."

The community center portion of the work will happen at a facility in the Greentown area in Marion County, she said. A similar grant a couple of years back funded an operational community center there that will be used in the current grant.

photo Ben Lomand Communications employees Kevin Hillis, Jordan Delong and Martin Hillis install fiber during a past project. Ben Lomand received a $1.8 million USDA grant to extend fiber to residents along the Marion-Franklin county line near Monteagle, Tenn.

"It'll be open in the morning before people go to work, it'll be open later in the evening, and will also have some weekend hours," Cope said. "There will also be some digital literacy [training] to go along with that, and there will be at least two computers and a printer available."

Once it begins, the work will be phased so that customers along the extension can get service without having to wait until the entire project is done, she said. Once grant documents are executed, Ben Lomand will have three years to complete the project, she said.

The grant is part of $91 million awarded for projects in 12 states announced last week by Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Anne Hazlett. Tennessee Rural Development State Director Jim Tracy also lauded the benefits for Ben Lomand's customers along with Scott County Telephone Cooperative customers on the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

"Having fast, reliable access to broadband is vital to the prosperity and economy of Tennessee's rural communities," Tracy said in a news release. "The USDA is working hard to ensure that rural businesses and residents have access to the same quality services available to those in urban areas."

According to a 2018 report by the Federal Communications Commission, 80 percent of the 24 million American households that lack reliable, affordable, high-speed internet are in rural areas.

USDA's $91 million in grants for the 19 projects will benefit more than 27,000 businesses and households in Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

Not too far away from Chattanooga, Blue Ridge Mountain EMC in Towns County, Georgia, will use a $3 million grant to construct a fiber-to-the-home broadband system that provides services to 865 households and seven businesses, along with a community center outfitted much like the one to be built by Ben Lomand.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.

photo Ben Lomand Communications employees Kevin Hillis, Jordan Delong and Martin Hillis install fiber during a past project. Ben Lomand received a $1.8 million USDA grant to extend fiber to residents along the Marion-Franklin county line near Monteagle, Tenn.

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