The Virginia Tech Foundation has received a grant award from the U.S. Department of Commerce Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program to extend Virginia’s open-access fiber optic backbone into the central Appalachian region of the state.
The Virginia Tech Foundation served as the applicant and provided financing for a $1.385 million cash match to meet the 20 percent match eligibility requirement for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration program.
“I applaud the efforts of the Virginia Tech Foundation to provide public Internet service to un-served and under-served communities in Southwest Virginia,” says 9th District U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher who has worked steadily to help extend broadband through his rural district.
Says Raymond D. Smoot Jr., COO of the Virginia Tech Foundation, “The total project budget is $6.925 million, with $5.54 million provided from federal grant assistance.”
Over the last decade, Virginia has invested funds from the tobacco indemnification settlement and federal funding sources to build high performance fiber optic networks throughout the rural, tobacco-growing regions in the Southside and Southwest areas of the Commonwealth. This grant will allow extension of the network outside the tobacco region. The new path will add 110 miles of fiber to the system beginning at an existing node in Bedford and stretching through Bedford, Roanoke, Botetourt, Craig, Giles, and Montgomery counties to reach Blacksburg and Virginia Tech.
(From press release.)
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