Grayson county project
Last updated: 2-1-2023
Project Partners Include:
History of the Project
In 2019, Grayson County Administration selected GigaBeam Networks to partner with the County to solve the rural broadband issues for the unserved locations throughout the County. Soon after, Appalachian Power selected Grayson to be the county for their pilot project under the direction of new Virginia legislation, thanks to Delegate O’Quinn, allowing investor owned utilities to help provide fiber optic lines in unserved areas.
In May of 2019, GigaBeam, APCO and the County began working on a design to construct 238 miles of fiber optic lines and SCC approval of a project to get Grayson County connected county-wide. The project was presented to the SCC in July 2019 and final approval was given in March of 2020.
After Approval, APCO and GigaBeam immediately began low level design of the network. During that time, GigaBeam worked with Grayson County to apply for a Virginia VATI grant, to cover the expenses in building a county-wide hybrid Fiber/Fixed Wireless network. This grant was awarded in January of 2020.
Fiber Construction began in December of 2020, and Phase 1 Wireless began in the Spring of 2021.
The project is funded by 3 pools including 2 Tobacco Commission grants and 1 VATI grant. The funding locations are shown below:
In partnership with APCo, GigaBeam is constructing a hybrid fixed wireless/fiber to the premise network. The fiber network is broken down into 17 service areas throughout the county. Each area is shown in the map below. As each service area construction completes, service to customers in that area can be installed and receive service. Currently, OLT’s 1-3, and 12 are active.
UPDATE 2-1-2023! OLT area 5 activated as of the end of January! OLT area 4 will go active this week! We expect OLT 11 to go live next with OLT area 10 soon after. OLT area 6,7,8, and 9 to follow between February and March.
Wireless Coverage
We’re building a hybrid fixed wireless/fiber network in Grayson County. Below is the current wireless and fiber coverage currently active. The Fiber network will be “feeding” the wireless network for connectivity. Wireless coverage will follow the OLT paths in site construction and turn up of services. The map below shows the current wireless coverage.
Update 2-1-2023: We are in the process of expanding wireless coverage and have acquired 4 additional site locations to expand service. We will update the coverage map as each site is built and activated.
Signup Now!
We strongly encourage anyone interested in getting serviced to sign up immediately!
There is much work to be done before the entire service area is activated but deployment activation times are getting faster as final stages of the project are approaching. We strongly encourage anyone interested in getting serviced to sign up immediately. There is no obligation to sign-up! This will help us develop our deployment strategy and plan and will also include you in a mailing list for updates on the project and service availability. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us!