Patience is a virtue not easily held — especially when potential customers can see high-speed internet cables running closer and closer to their rural homes.
Just ask Alan Gates.
During Monday’s Trigg County Fiscal Court meeting, the president & CEO of Pennyrile Rural Electric provided an update to magistrates and Judge-Executive Stan Humphries, on the colossal build out of broadband coming to the quaint surroundings of Cadiz.
Already PRECC and Hopkinsville Electric serve more than 500 customers in the city and upper northeastern Trigg County, but many remain both unserved and underserved.
However, Gates noted that fiscal court’s initial gift of $2 million and a $1.9 million grant from the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority, combined with a PRECC match, helped put this $20 million project in motion.
Opening this month, Gates said, will be a small section in the southeast portion of the county — just north of Fort Campbell and along the border with Christian County.
A significant portion of southern Trigg County — from LBL to I-24 — will open to service in March.
Gates said one of the biggest challenges moving forward will be the determination of “unserved” versus “underserved” customers. Many have access to hotspots and other forms of Wi-Fi technologies, but they aren’t matching any of the best speeds available.
Gates also said there is an expectation that PRECC and HES receive funds from this second round of KIA grants, an application that was due Monday afternoon. Trigg County’s build, however, has gone up from an initial cost of $16 million — meaning it’s going to take about another $12 million to serve every single resident.
At this point, citizens without high-speed fiber internet and wishing to have it can check with goenergynet.com to see if it’s available in their area. Three packages are open to the public: 200 MB at $59.99 a month, 500 MB at $79.99 a month, and 1 GB at $99.99 a month.
If the service isn’t available, one can sign up for a notification of its arrival. Gates said this is the biggest part of the process that likely needs to be shored up in the immediate future.
Gates did say a number of contractors have been procured in order to expedite connections from the poles to the homes.
