Grant will allow Henrico to offer broadband to far reaches of county
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All of Henrico County soon will have access to high-speed internet, following the award of nearly half a million dollars from the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative grant.
More than 400 residences and businesses in Eastern Henrico County that don't currently have broadband access will receive it within 18 to 24 months, thanks to the $501,620 VATI grant Henrico received May 11 from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.
The Henrico County Universal Broadband Project’s goal is to reach 100% broadband access throughout Henrico. The new locations, located in the eastern and southeastern reaches of the Varina District, include 376 residential, 22 commercial, three community anchors and 11 non-residential locations, Henrico Director of Information Technology Travis Sparrow told the Citizen.
Construction is set to begin six months after the final contract is executed and should take about 12 to 18 months, which means residents in areas without broadband may gain access in about 18-24 months, Sparrow said.
Henrico applied for the VATI grant in 2021 in a partnership with Comcast but did not receive the award. Last year, the county applied in a partnership with All Points Broadband and received the 2023 award.
“Affordability of the services offered was a huge factor in the county's decision to partner with All Points,” Sparrow said. “That coupled with their success and body, we wanted to ensure that what we were working to provide would be something that the residents would welcome and not be cost-prohibitive to them.”
The 412 locations were identified by using the 2021 application’s points as a baseline, then adding data from All Points’ extensive field and crowdsource surveys and the county’s own coverage data, Sparrow said.
Building the new network will cost just more than $6.5 million, Sparrow said. In addition to the VATI grant, the county is contributing about $1.45 million, All Points Broadband is covering about $1.5 million in costs, and Dominion Energy is contributing about $3 million.
New access to broadband is expected to cost residents a $199 installation fee plus monthly fees of $59.99, $89.99 or $119.99 for three tiers of service, which differ in download speeds of 50/50 megabits, 100/100 megabits and 1 gigabit per second, according to a news release from Henrico County Department of Information Technology.
The county also is applying for funding from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program at the National Telecommunications and Administration to try to offset some of its costs. It also has applied for congressional funding to offset the county match as well, Sparrow said.
