Monongalia County Commissioner Sean Sikora said he recently had a bit of a broadband epiphany courtesy of the initiative taken by the Hagans Community.
Back in March, residents of the area — which includes Hagans, Hawkins Run, Merle Yost and Shuman Run roads — approached the commission with a request for $12,000. That’s the amount cable and internet service provider (ISP) Comcast said it would need to provide high-speed internet to 42 homes in the area.
After the public discussion of the request, Comcast ended up absorbing that cost, but the situation got Sikora rethinking the county’s approach to getting broadband to all corners of the county.
“If we’ve got to pivot, then we’ve got to pivot and maybe talk about these things and add opportunities for some of these ISPs to pick up some of this work, and then we can really focus where there isn’t any middle-mile capability, like the western end, and have these guys pick up where they have service close and where they can expand,” he said.
Part of that realization, Sikora continued, was born of frustration.
When the Monongalia County Commission invested the time and resources to create a comprehensive broadband plan back in 2021, it did so with the belief that having that data in hand would assist the county in organizing and marshaling funds to specific broadband projects.
The problem, Sikora explained, is that in the current free-for-all environment surrounding federal broadband grant dollars, everything is constantly in flux and there’s seemingly little-to-no coordination.
“It’s become painfully obvious to me that the environment just keeps changing. We’re trying to do something in a very methodical, comprehensive manner and the ground keeps shifting,” Sikora said. “In the end, we just want our citizens covered.”
As a result of the aforementioned broadband plan, the county was divided into 14 broadband “rings” or projects. The engineering is underway for a project to provide the “middle-mile” infrastructure in Ring 11, a vertical strip across western Monongalia County.
ISPs like Comcast or others could then come in and use that infrastructure to provide “final-mile” connections to the homes and businesses in the area.
Sikora said there are parts of the county where that’s likely still going to be the route forward, but all options are on the table.
“We’re trying to figure out how we can continue. We have a lot of information that we’ve already paid for to have developed. If we can take that information and help others help us, then that’s what we want to do,” he said. “We realize we may have to change along the way and refocus.”
The commission has committed $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars to be used for broadband projects.
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