Funding deadlines loom over project
The year 2025 will mark a critical junction for a broadband project — providing affordable high-speed internet — that Rappahannock and seven other Virginia counties were promised in 2022.
Why it matters
Rappahannock residents saw no visible progress in 2024. Any progress made in 2025 will set the stage for the culminating year of the project in 2026. The eight-county project relies on $96 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, enacted to jump-start an ailing U.S. economy following COVID lockdowns. The massive federal subsidy, plus nearly $6 million of local nonprofit and private contributions, enabled Rappahannock to sign onto the plan without any new taxes on residents.
But the clock is ticking. ARPA legislation states that funds unspent at the end of 2026 must be returned to the federal treasury. Executives of All Points Broadband, the Leesburg company at the center of the public-private development project, have stated the clawback won’t happen. Meanwhile, the agreement doesn’t lock residents into All Points, and some have contracted with StarLink, Brightspeed and other providers to build them a reliable link to internet connection.
What to expect
All Points Broadband to appear at Rappahannock Board of Supervisors meeting
Representatives from All Points Broadband will appear at a Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors meeting Monday evening — the company’s first in-person appearance since the supervisors approved the contract in 2021 for a county-wide fiber buildout.
The new year begins with a Jan. 6 Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors’ meeting focused on the 12-month delay in getting the fiber-optic lines in place for thousands of households and businesses to schedule their individual connections.
The project needs both more time, and more money, and in the first quarter, All Points Broadband will apply for a new injection of federal funds under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program in the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill. These monies would help All Points lay as much as 60% of the fiber lines underground, having been slowed by the process of gaining permits to attach the fiber-optic lines to existing utility poles used for electricity and telephone wires.
