As we’ve written previously, Loudoun County government released an RFI seeking partners for an application to the FY2022 Virginia Telecommunications Initiative grant. Loudoun county received responses and shared those with LBA and others that made the request.
Loudoun County received responses from seven interested parties. Of those, two were eliminated by county staff due to failure to meet the goals stated in the RFI. The remaining five are from Lumos, All Points Broadband, T-Mobile, ZiTel, and SWS Tech (SE Wireless).
LBA has evaluated the responses using criteria aligned with LBA’s mission, the criteria described in the county’s RFI, and the VATI guidelines. A summary comparison of the responses is shown in the table below.
Based purely on the information provided in the responses LBA believes that the proposal from All Points Broadband has the strongest technical, logistical, and financial response. The All Points Broadband proposal is the only response that addresses truly universal coverage in Loudoun County which is heavily weighted in the Draft 2022 VATI Program Guidelines and Criteria.
Download LBA’s complete report here.
County staff is expected to report their evaluation and recommendation at Tuesday night’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting (May 4, 2021). Staff’s brief summary can be found on the county website.
Interestingly, staff is also presenting this week the results of the county’s biannual Survey of Residents. In this latest survey, 67% of respondents say that it is Essential or Very Important for the county to focus on Increased Access to Broadband Internet over the next two years. Interestingly, this statistic is not biased toward the rural districts or any other demographic group. It is supported across the spectrum.