UPDATE: Earlier this summer, I told you I testified in Frankfort on behalf of West Kentucky communities about the need to advance the deployment of high-speed and reliable broadband.
Our advocacy has paid off!
Kenergy announced a $150 million high-speed, fiber-to-the-home internet network covering 14 counties, requiring 7,200 miles of fiber line, and reaching all 49,000 current Kenergy power customers.
Kenergy’s partner in the project, Connexon, is overseeing construction of the network and says it typically is able to lay 1,000 miles of line per year in normal circumstances. But for this project, working with our own Ervin Cable Construction LLC, the goal will be to double that output, meaning the entire buildout will take around 3.5 years.
As sections of the network are completed. they will be switched on, meaning some customers could start getting the service as early as this year. Exact timelines for when hook-ups will be available still haven’t been determined, but officials at the announcement said the creating of the network starts “today.”
A huge thank you to the team and board of directors at Kenergy, as well as CEO Jeff Hohn, for taking this critically important leap of faith. Thank you, as well, to our state legislators, including Robby Mills and Jonathan Dixon, for passing legislation last session that paved the way for this project. And a special thanks and pats on the back for my fellow judge-executives in the region and their fiscal courts, who fought tooth and nail to help make this happen for their communities.
I’m convinced this would not have been possible if not for those collective efforts.
Stay tuned for more information as it becomes public.
-Original Post-
Assuring ALL Henderson County residents have access to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet service has been a priority of mine since I became judge-executive six years ago. It is not an easy problem to solve, and many rural counties across the country are also wrestling with this issue. But here we are making progress.
On Wednesday, Crittenden County Judge-Executive Perry Newcom and I spoke on behalf of other judge-executives from Western Kentucky to the state General Assembly’s Appropriations and Revenue Interim Joint Committee. We were joined by Kenergy CEO Jeff Hohn and collectively urged the committee members to hasten the process of pushing out to counties, cities and electrical cooperatives the millions of dollars in grant funds approved by the state legislature last session.
Combining those grants with even more rural internet funding coming from Washington would give a cooperative such as Kenergy the ability to build out a fiber-to-the-home broadband network to all its existing electricity customers, many of whom have no quality internet options now. Creating such a network is very expensive and will take time, but Kenergy is determined to do it sooner than later if it can access those state funds.
That’s why I was in Frankfort Wednesday – to help advocate for our community and others in this region. And I will make as many trips as necessary to the state capitol, or any capitol, and utilize all the resources we have at the local level to get Henderson County the connectivity families and businesses need.
There’s good news on another front in this effort. Thanks to grants secured by Henderson County Fiscal Court with the help of the Green River Area Development District, Watch Communications has significantly upgraded its local wireless internet service . The internet provider for the ConnectGRADD eight-county wireless network, Watch Communications can now reach more homes than ever with speeds topping 50 MBs. That’s enough horsepower for just about any family’s working/streaming/gaming needs. At a recent open house, Watch signed up dozens of county families who were previously unserved.
I know we can accomplish our goal of internet availability for all Henderson Countians. If I earn your support this November, I’ll continue making this a priority in the years to come.
-Brad