Loudoun County 2022 Accelerated Fiber Deployment Initiative
FAQs about Loudoun County’s FTTH initiative and the VATI grant application.
In March 2021, Loudoun County officials issued a request for interest to solicit parties interested in partnering with the county on a broadband expansion project and application to the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI). In September 2021, Loudoun County, with their selected partner All Points Broadband, co-applied for grant funding from VATI to build fiber-to-the-home broadband Internet service to all the homes and businesses in the county that do not currently have access to wired broadband Internet service.
LBA is compiling a series of FAQs with answers we believe those that are affected by this initiative will want to know. Please contact us with questions or comments.
Loudoun County 2022 Accelerated Fiber Deployment Initiative
This initiative will extend fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) to an estimated 8,855 homes and businesses which do not currently have access to wired broadband Internet service.
The project partners are:
The estimated cost is $61.15M.
The project is funded by:
- All Points Broadband through private investment
- Loudoun County from funds allocated to the county from ARPA
- An anticipated grant from the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI)
- An anticipated grant from Virginia’s Utility Leverage Program
| wdt_ID | Funding Source | Amount ($ millions) | Amount | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Loudoun County | 12.425 | 12,425,000.00 | Secured |
| 2 | Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI) | 12.750 | 12,750,000.00 | Pending |
| 3 | Virginia Electric Utility Leverage Program | 9.850 | 9,850,000.00 | SCC Pending |
| 4 | All Points Broadband | 21.125 | 21,125,000.00 | Secured |
VATI is a Commonwealth program administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) with a primary objective to provide financial assistance to supplement construction costs by private sector broadband service providers, in partnership with local units of government, to extend service to areas that presently are unserved by any broadband provider. DHCD will award grant funds (up to $49,725,000 in FY2022) to eligible applicants to provide last-mile services to unserved areas of the Commonwealth.
The Utility Leverage Program emerged from the Virginia General Assembly (SB1413 and HB2304) in 2021 which allows Virginia’s investor-owned utilities – Appalachian Power and Dominion Energy – to partner with localities and internet service providers to leverage utility-owned fiber for unserved areas of the state. The program aims at potentially reducing the cost for rural broadband deployment significantly at the middle-mile level.
- The proposed project area contains those communities and neighborhoods where Comcast and/or Verizon are not required to complete network buildout under the thresholds in the County’s franchise agreements with these providers. In other words if a location is not serviced by Comcast or Verizon wireline broadband currently or scheduled to be (based on county franchise agreements) then those locations would be covered by this project.
- In the project area there are 8,185 residential locations, 212 non-home based businesses, 6 community anchors (schools, libraries, etc), and 452 non-residential locations.
- A map of the project area is provided in the application on page 29 of 144. Click here to download a copy of the map.
- Field verification by APB of areas where Comcast and Verizon are not currently providing service.
- Review of County information gathered by previous studies.
- APB field verification of fixed-wireless providers reporting offering broadband speeds of 25/3.
- Area was also compared against an independent map of unserved areas developed by the Loudoun Broadband Alliance.
- Resident surveys by APB with over 2,400 respondents.
- The project will provide fiber-to-the-home broadband internet service (wired)
- Speed tiers (3) with monthly pricing will be:
| wdt_ID | Internet Speed Tier | Monthly Consumer Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100Mbps download and 100Mbps upload | 79.99 |
| 2 | 500Mbps download and 500Mbps upload | 99.99 |
| 3 | 1Gbps download and 1Gbps upload | 149.99 |
| 4 |
- For the first 12 months after service is available at any location within the project area, the standard installation fee of $199.00 will include any length of service drop to make service available to the location.
- Additional fees will include a $5 flat service fee to cover applicable taxes and FCC fees.
- Additional optional service will include VOIP phone service at $14.99/month.
Current estimates indicate that VATI would announce grant decisions in December 2021 and that the contract would be issued by July 2022. Construction of last-mile fiber would begin immediately after the VATI contract is issued to All Points Broadband, and the first customers could be connected as early as the fourth quarter of 2022 and the majority of customers connected by the summer of 2024.
Update: As of January 2024, All Points Broadband is reporting that the first customers could be connected by the 4th quarter of 2024.
Loudoun County’s application can be downloaded here
The proposed network includes:
- 663 miles of distribution fiber
- 30 miles are existing routes owned and maintained by NOVEC
- 436 miles will be built by All Points Broadband
- 197 miles will be built by Dominion Energy
The fiber cables will be a mix of strand counts ranging from 24 to 288 fiber strands.
Approximately 85% will be aerial (on poles) and 15% will be underground.
The portion of the network that delivers data directly to the subscriber will be fed by a technology called XGS-PON. This system, defined by the ITU-T and deployed widely around the world, can deliver data to a user at speeds up to 8.8Gbps.
The project area includes approximately 2,919 low and medium income (LMI) households, which is one-third of all the households in the project area. All the service offerings made available through this project will be eligible for the federal Emergency Broadband Benefit program and future affordability programs available to LMI households in which APB is a participating provider.
Further, All Points has developed a digital equity strategy. Under that strategy, the County and All Points have agreed that, for the first twelve months after its service is available, All Points will provide service drops to all locations within the project area, regardless of drop length, for the same fixed installation fee of $199.00.
The County and All Points will partner with the County’s library system to conduct digital literacy training and awareness events.
APB has developed a Digital Inclusion Academy through Google for Education, based on best practices and recommendation from the National Digital Equity Center, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and NTIA’s BroadbandUSA toolkits, which includes courses such as “Use Digital Tools for Everyday Tasks”, “Avoid Online Scams”, “Build Healthy Digital Habits”, “Edit Your Resume”, and others of a similar nature. All Points will offer free access to this Academy and all related courses to all locations within the proposed project area and all County residents.
If you are in the project area, there is nothing that you must do before project construction begins.
All Points Broadband has prepared an extensive marketing campaign that is expected to begin as soon as the State Corporation Commission approves Dominion’s application for Utility Leverage funding.
As part of this campaign, and approximately 90 days before service is available at a specific location, APB will send an additional series of direct mail to potential customers that have not pre-registered for service.
Prior to this planned marketing campaign, if you want to express your desire to get service when it becomes available, All Points Broadband is taking pre-registrations for the service at https://fiber.allpointsbroadband.com/.