Crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway is slow going in quest for broadband deployment
- by Cardinal News
- Jun 17, 2024
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Porter Mountain and the valley below are seen from an overlook off the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Peaks of Otter Lodge. Guests at the lodge can access satellite internet inside, but not outdoors. Photo by Tad Dickens.
High-speed internet is tantalizingly close to the five houses on Hogan Road in Roanoke County.
Two right turns from the Roanoke County thoroughfare is Rutrough Road.
“And it’s Cox [Communications cable] all the way down,” said Hogan Road resident Jessica Tipton. “Like, my grandma lives 2 minutes down the road. They have it.”
Tipton moved into the neighborhood nearly a year ago, and her property includes a box containing a cable hookup. The previous resident told her the box had been there for two years.
The holdup is just across the street from Tipton and her neighbors. It’s the Blue Ridge Parkway, and federal approval is required to run cable under the scenic national road. Tipton said she has contacted Cox and received mail from the internet service provider, which told her it expected to complete the project by September.
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Jessica Tipton and her 5-year-old daughter, Lyrik, sit on the box that Cox Communications placed in her front yard. Once the Blue Ridge Parkway issues Cox a permit to place fiber optic cable underneath the road, Tipton will get internet at her home near Explore Park in Roanoke County. Photo by Tad Dickens.
“Permits are still pending, but we continue to work with the park service to get the necessary approvals and the project completed,” Cox spokeswoman Margaret-Hunter Wade said in an email exchange.
The Hogan Road neighborhood, near Explore Park, is one of two spots on the parkway where Cox is seeking a permit to provide internet access. The other is in the Cave Spring area of Roanoke County. Cox confirmed the projects but declined further comment.
After the pandemic, the federal government pumped billions of dollars into broadband deployment plans nationwide, with Virginia receiving about $750 million — more than $1 billion, counting other public and private money.
Cox and other broadband providers in the commonwealth received money from that pot, but have found various forces — including the logistics of electric companies’ utility poles and privately held railroad crossings — pushing them closer to a December 2026 deadline, after which they’ll lose unspent federal dollars.
Tipton is more concerned about having internet access by the time her 5-year-old daughter begins kindergarten this fall.
“It’s just very aggravating,” she said.
In Floyd County, one resident reported that it took more than two years before the park service approved a Citizens Telephone Cooperative request for a permit to bury cable under the road. Jennifer Baker said that her family learned that Citizens filed for a permit in January 2022, but it wasn’t until late March of this year that the co-op was finally able to cross the parkway, and the internet is coming to Baker’s family residence.
The Blue Ridge Parkway has received 33 requests in Virginia and 19 in North Carolina from internet service providers seeking right-of-way permit requests for new construction, parkway spokeswoman Leesa Sutton Brandon said last week.
In Virginia, 22 of the requests have been approved, and the rest are in process. In North Carolina, 12 have been approved and seven are in process. None have been denied, Brandon wrote.
Ten internet utility crossings exist to date in Virginia, and 36 in North Carolina. The parkway has 400 utility crossings of all types, including new construction and renewals for existing electric, phone, water, sewer and other utilities, she wrote.
Ray LaMura is president of the Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association — Broadband Association of Virginia, a broadband advocacy group. LaMura has been following the situation and said that the application and review processes have improved significantly over about the past six months, as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has worked to inform the park service and other federal entities about deadlines for funding broadband construction.
“There are still some delays, but at the same time, we understand that there are some other i’s that always have to be dotted and t’s that have to be crossed,” he said. “When all this broadband money was put into play, the industry saw very quickly the stresses being put on agencies and other infrastructure providers, just because of the volume [of work] that was increasing and all of a sudden on their plate.
“But what we have seen with the National Park Service is that they have been responsive to ISPs as this process has evolved. We understand that they have different agencies and different laws that they’ve always got to check boxes on, to make sure they’re in compliance and that they don’t get in trouble on the back end of stuff.”
Any new utility service, even within an existing right of way, requires a new permit, according to parkway spokeswoman Brandon. That process requires an appraisal, along with environmental and cultural resource reviews to ensure compliance with laws, policies and regulations that include the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, Brandon wrote.
Regional and state technical experts review the plans, and in some cases, archaeological surveys happen, she wrote.
Park service staff members work with the utilities making such requests to move things “as efficiently and smoothly as possible,” she added. “It is a lengthy process, made more complex along the Parkway because of the wide variety of locations and installation types needed due to the area’s topography.”
Satellite internet connections work inside the Peaks of Otter Lodge restaurant and motel rooms. Photo by Tad Dickens.
Meanwhile, residents and businesses have had more or less success with satellite internet providers.
The Peaks of Otter Lodge in Bedford County was scheduled to be part of a project to send broadband under the adjacent Blue Ridge Parkway. But a request from Verizon languished for so long that Bedford County officials, consulting with Verizon and the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development, decided to wait and fund the project not with the current federal money but with a new round that is coming via the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, known as BEAD.
The tourist attraction and motel that features a shimmering lake dealt with a sluggish Wi-Fi setup in past years but has recently switched to Starlink — SpaceX’s satellite internet service — said Philip Hubbard, the lodge’s sales and event coordinator. Hubbard said he only recently took the job, but is aware of the feedback on its effectiveness.
“From what I’ve heard it’s been a big improvement for what we’ve had over the years,” Hubbard said.
It doesn’t work outside, however — only in the lodge’s restaurant and motel rooms. And the business itself is not connected. The lodge has landline phones. Even the bar’s mood music is on an SD card.
None of it mattered to Elaine Haver. She was there vacationing at the Peaks earlier this month with her husband, who was scheduled to sing later that day with the West Point Alumni Glee Club at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, for the D-Day 80th anniversary commemoration.
“We enjoy limited access,” she said. “Sometimes it’s good to go away. We are from the D.C. area. Believe me, it’s nice to be outside like this and enjoy that. But I guess for some people [it’s] more important.”
A view from Abbott Lake toward the Peaks of Otter Lodge, off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The lodge is using satellite internet, which works inside but not outside. Verizon and Bedford County have given up for now on trying to get Blue Ridge Parkway approval to run fiber optic cable under the road and to the lodge. Photo by Tad Dickens.
Elsewhere near the parkway, on Monday, Tipton said that she had tried Hughesnet’s satellite setup, but was disappointed with the service and dropped it. She considered Starlink but found it too expensive.
She gets about two bars of data in her front yard, within sight of both her cable box and the parkway. Inside, she can’t use her phone for calls or internet, she said.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., through a spokeswoman, said he wants to see the issue resolved.
“Over the last two years we have made tremendous strides in bringing broadband to every corner of the Commonwealth,” Warner said in a written statement. “As I have repeatedly said, any problems we are seeing now are not due to a lack of funding, but rather, a failure of execution. To maximize the investments made in broadband deployment, we need all partners — federal, state, and private — working together with local leaders to connect unserved and underserved communities across Virginia.”
“I have been in contact with Blue Ridge Parkway leadership on this issue, and I will continue to press for answers on how we can move these projects forward swiftly and responsibly.”
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