NTELOS Gets Funds To Provide Broadband to Alleghany Highlands

Waynesboro-based wireless provider NTELOS Holding Corp. has qualified to accept a $16 million federal broadband stimulus award, which will make available broadband services and infrastructure to the rural Alleghany Highlands of Virginia.

The award, which requires NTELOS to match the $8 million federal grant, enables NTELOS to build a "future proof" fiber optic network to serve the needs of the area into the future.

President Frank Berry of NTELOS Wireline says, "The Alleghany Now Broadband Initiative will bring high-speed fiber optics directly to 4,000-plus homes and approximately 233 businesses and 36 community anchor institutions, public safety entities, and critical community organizations. This initiative will directly employ over 40 people and will create over 100 jobs.'

NTELOS is the only Virginia company to receive a federal stimulus award thus far from the Rural Utilities Service 50/50 program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The Virginia House of Delegates Committee on Commerce and Labor presented a bill in a form that enabled NTELOS to accept the award and to fund its $8 million portion of the broadband investment. David Kleppinger, executive director of the Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Corporation, says, “This infrastructure is absolutely critical to the economic future of the Alleghany Highlands.”