The federal government is helping Trailwave Fiber foot the bill to expand fiber-optic internet service in White County. The Federal Communications Commission awarded the Habersham EMC subsidiary a $490,000 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund grant. Trailwave will use the grant to offset the cost of expanding service to more than 700 locations in White County. Once completed, the network should deliver speeds of up to a Gig.
RDOF is the FCC’s initiative to bring high-speed broadband service to rural areas. Over the next 10 years, the fund is committed to awarding $20.4 billion to internet providers through a reverse auction format divided into phases. The recent awards are from Phase 1, which required funds to go to census blocks unserved by broadband with downloads of at least 25 Mbps. Partially served areas – those where some, but not all, locations within the census block have 25 Mbps service – are eligible in Phase 2 of the reverse auction.
“A reverse auction format requires grant applicants to submit bids,” explains Glenn Purcell, Habersham EMC’s Vice President of Technology & Services, who oversees Trailwave Fiber Inc. “The FCC generally awards the grants based upon who can provide the highest broadband speed to an area for the lowest construction cost.”
Purcell says construction on the White County expansion project is underway, but cautions, activation won’t happen overnight.
“The grant is for a ten-year period; however, our goal is to have these locations activated within six years or less,” he says.
According to Purcell, Trailwave is exploring other funding opportunities to speed up expanding its fiber to the home network throughout Northeast Georgia. Currently, the company provides fiber-optic service to more than 5,000 subscribers in the region.
