All Points’ Loudoun broadband project delayed
Need for more utility pole attachments pushes back project 15 months
Just months after being told by project leaders the effort to extend broadband service to more than 8,600 homes in western Loudoun was on track to be mostly completed by the end of the year, Loudoun supervisors learned April 16 the project deadline would be pushed back 15 months.
The $61 million project—funded by federal and state grants, Dominion Energy and i nternet provider All Points Broadband— envisions the construction of 620 miles of fiber, with 176 miles to be attached to utility poles.
Loudoun County Assistant Director of Information Technology Dave Friedrich told the board that the increased need for utility pole attachments across the county and the state will push the estimated completion date for the project from July 2024 to October 2025. Contractors working on the broadband expansion must submit applications to attach to existing utility poles owned by Dominion Energy and the Northern Virginia Electrical Cooperative.
“We’d like to emphasize that our partners are dedicated to having
broadband service available to the first county resident in the calendar year 2024,” he said.
All Points Vice President of Business Development Tom Innes said, despite the delay, the project is moving forward.
“The key number here is that [since December] we have had a 16 times increase in the number of poles that have been made ready for All Points to attach our fiber,” he said, adding that currently 4,400 poles were ready with another 8,000 in the review process.
Initially, the applications to attach to Dominion utility poles totaled about 10,000 statewide. Dominion received requests for approximately 125,000 poles in 2023. All Points will submit applications for 13,000 Dominion and NOVEC poles in Loudoun alone and has surveyed approximately 17,000 individual poles.
Supervisor Laura A. TeKrony (D-Little River) asked if there was a way residents could learn when they were going to be connected or where their home sits on the priority list.
“We would love to be able to say who is going first and on what day, but until we have enough of those approvals in a row, in a contiguous fashion, we don’t know exactly where that first mile of construction would happen,” Innes said, adding that they would be notify residents of their hookup opportunities 90 days in advance.
The project was launched in 2022.