RTC Communications in Montgomery has been involved in a building project that right now has broadband in 71 percent of the county.
"The expansion of broadband in Daviess County is continuing. We have several projects slated for this year. We have a $17 million grant application with Reconnect 4 that we anticipate we will hear about in April that will close a lot of the gaps in what we call north Montgomery from Montgomery to Odon that will bring service into the Amish community there," said RTC General Manager Kirk Lehman. "We are going to be starting some projects later this year that will cover areas south of Washington and some pockets in the Washington area. The projects still continue."
But with each home that has broadband running past its doorstep, the difficulty and cost for the next home seems to increase.
"Getting to those last pockets is extremely difficult. We applied for the Reconnect grant. That's a $16-18 million project to serve around 1,000 homes in the Amish community. The build cost is $80,000 a mile and as you get into the lesser populated areas the price just keeps going up and up and up," said Lehman. "The other challenge in the Amish community is you spend $16 million but other than the businesses, the residential folks don't buy broadband. We still have a commitment to do it, but we need some help financially to get it to them. It doesn't make a lot of sense to spend $16 million to run fiber to people who won't buy it. We think that they may in the future. We know their businesses do. We should be able to close a large gap with the Reconnect grant. It is also an $8.5 million commitment from RTC to do it. It's expensive."
Among the things that have slowed the broadband expansion is simply money. Grants have helped closed that gap to get fiber to every home but it is not quite enough for now.
"The issue with RTC is that there are only so many resources to go around. We have invested $35 million and that amount continues to grow each month. But we are a small coop and we need some help. We are trying to find every resource available through various grants and other programs to close that gap," said Lehman. "We are really closing the gap and I think we will close it even more over the next 12 months. We just need a little push to get to those little rural pockets that are extremely expensive to build out to."
One thing that has helped with the development is a tax abatement the county enacted that limits the property tax exposure of broadband companies.
"They were wanting to make Daviess County a gig-county. They got the first project done, but getting the last one done will not be easy. It is a lot of rural areas without a lot of houses together so it is going to cost a lot of money to get that done," said Daviess County Commissioner Michael Taylor. "It is very important if we intend to attract people for jobs. People with school kids want the Internet. We have a ton of businesses in the county that use the Internet so it is extremely important to them that we have reliable Internet to every rooftop in the county."
Local leaders also point out that with the new micro processing chip plant planned for WestGate expanding the availability of broadband becomes even more important.
"It adds gravity to the situation. When you are talking about bringing that kind of talent to the region you know they are going to be looking for access to broadband. They will demand a high-speed broadband Internet," said Daviess County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Bryant Niehoff. "It is going to be important on attracting the people who will be working there. They are tech people. It's no longer a nice to have..it's must have."
RTC officials have recognized the need to up the broadband game in northern Daviess County and the company is looking to beef up its offerings in the northeast part of the county, all the way to Crane.
"That's why we did the Reconnect and why most recently we overbuilt Odon. We want to get service to the northern tiers of our district to serve those customers and potentially serve Crane," said Lehman. "We have been in conversations with Crane on some projects with them. It is a little different animal working with the federal government and a military base."
RTC reports there are 14,690 rooftops in Daviess County and that right now 10,389 are served by RTC fiber. Officials believe that once the construction projects are finished next year 13,845 will have broadband service available or 94 percent.
"Our objective is to serve every customer we can get to in Martin, Daviess and Lawrence counties," said Lehman.
©2023 Washington Times-Herald, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
