For months, the western Loudoun County, VA subsidized fiber-optic broadband project has lagged behind its targeted milestones. Nonetheless, All Points Broadband, the Richmond, VA-based internet service provider, insisted the project would finish on time. Now, officials say it won’t be complete until October 2025, a delay of more than a year, Loudoun Times-Mirror reports.
Last week, the state approved a 15-month extension of the project, which aims to bring high-speed internet to more than 8,600 homes and businesses in rural Loudoun County using 620 fiber route miles. All Points Broadband and local utility Dominion Energy have agreed to share construction of the 620-mile aerial fiber route using existing utility poles. All Points is responsible for building out 424 route miles, and Dominion is handling the balance, according to the project’s “milestone table.”
From July 2022 through to the beginning of 2024, no fiber was installed, according to the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative dashboard, last updated April 4, Times-Mirror reported. All Points maintained that the project was on track for “substantial completion” by July 2024, saying the fiber backbone routes would be installed but not the connections to homes and businesses.
With the project extension, All Points and Dominion now have until October 31, 2025, to complete the backbone network and the individual connections. All Points and Dominion “remain committed to making broadband service available to Loudoun’s first resident(s) prior to the end of 2024,” a county staff report says.
“It is our expectation that this project will be fully completed by the new extension date, and no additional extensions will be requested,” said Tamarah Holmes, Virginia’s Office of Broadband Director in a letter to the county.
Those involved in the project say that an “unprecedented” amount of “make-ready” work, the process of preparing the utility poles for fiber attachment, is slowing down the project and others across the state, according to the Times-Mirror.
Before the utility poles are ready for fiber-optic cables, All Points evaluates each pole to ensure it can withstand the additional attachment before applying for fiber attachment to the utility company that owns the pole. The utility company then evaluates the pole, completes any necessary construction or pole replacement, then issues to All Points a “notice to proceed,” meaning the pole is ready for fiber attachment.
Utility poles in Loudoun are serviced either by Dominion or the Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC). Dominion owns 75 percent of poles in the project area, according to the staff report.
Though the speed at which NOVEC is approving poles for fiber attachment has been “meeting or exceeding the Loudoun County project timelines,” the staff report says, Dominion has had “longer timelines.”
So far, Dominion has issued a notice to proceed for 3,700 poles. In total, All Points has applied for 13,000 attachments to Dominion and NOVEC.
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