Mike Holstine’s Pocahontas Broadband Status Interview Part 1

We are here today with Mike Holstine, one of the founding members of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, and we asked him to tell us about what is happening here in Pocahontas County regarding broadband fiber installation.

“About 4 years ago we started the Pocahontas County Broadband Council, which was the first county Broadband Council in the state,” Holstine said. “Broadband is important to rural West Virginia, it’s important to rural America, but it is really important to Pocahontas County We have applied to every possible funding source, several applications to the USDA. This latest was an application to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC,) and we received approval -we got a grant. So, the ARC Grant that we are presently working on, it’s a 49-mile project throughout the internal areas of the county that pretty much probably wouldn’t get broadband service without a subsidy of some sort. And, it will impact a thousand and twelve (1,012) households .”

We are working with Citynet on that, can you tell us why?

“Yes, Citynet had been a big partner in Pocahontas County for Quite a while,” answered Holstine. “In this ARC application, they actually put about five million dollars ($5,000,000) of their own money as a match, so that the county and the county commission didn’t have to come up with that. But they’ve been a long-time partner in Pocahontas County and in rural West Virginia too. They made significant progress in the last twenty years or so serving Pocahontas County in broadband, mainly in the Snowshoe area. Coming down 219, they ran fiber into Snowshoe. The owner of Citynet is a Beverly resident. He was born and raised in Beverly. It is the only wholly owned ISP (Internet Service Provider) in the State of West Virginia. Their commitment to rural goes beyond just broadband. Citynet developed and gave to the Pocahontas County Schools, software at no cost. With them pushing broadband throughout the rural areas and providing that match, it’s a great partner to the county commission.”

We notice that there is a lot of fiber being built around the county right now going very fast. Can you tell us a little about that.

“The nice comment is that competition is a great thing, Tim,” Holstine said. “We now see Frontier putting a lot of fiber in. They are doing a lot of boring because that’s how they will pull some fiber in in areas where they don’t have poles. But this is prior to our ARC Grant being approved for construction. So, pretty much, except for on 219, where Citynet is actually pulling some fiber, Frontier is pulling fiber as fast as they can, trying to, I guess, get their system in, and try to sign-up some customers.”

“There are actually 4 or 5 more projects in the county,” added Holstine. Citynet has what is called an RDOF Grant that is going to connect about seven-hundred and forty households. There is a Connect America Fund -which everybody calls a CALF Project. It is small, Citynet has about fourteen (14) households in it. And they have what is called a LEAD Project. It’s a one-hundred and thirty-two (132) mile project and costs about 5.5 million dollars ($5,500,000.) Citynet has a 25% match in that too, and that’s gonna impact just under twelve hundred (1,200) households. The engineering is complete, so you are gonna see beyond what Frontier is doing right now in various parts of the county, you’re going to see a lot of work  being done here by Citynet here soon.”

Have we heard any complaints on what Frontier is doing?

“Well…. Yes!” Holstine answered. “I am sorry to say, Marlinton has had some real issues with some of the work that’s being done down there with a lot of the conduit that’s being buried. A lot of it is being bored, some of came up my road. They are using a contractor, or the contractor has contracted it out, and therefore is a subcontractor. But I don’t know where these folks are from, they are not worried too much about what they are doing. I’ve had several calls by some residents over at Stoney Bottom and I guess near Slaty Fork as well, and they’ve actually torn up some phone lines over there, they’ve brought conduit right up into somebody; s driveway and he couldn’t park his car-he’s really trying to figure out what is going on with that, and I understand they bored through some sewer lines in Marlinton. So, I don’t know. We need to make sure that doesn’t continue. Luckily, none of that is with the grant that is through the Pocahontas County Broadband Grant and the ARC.”

Be sure to listen to part 2 of our interview with Holstine, where he will tell us about another big broadband program being applied for here in Pocahontas County, the BEAD Program, and other aspects of the expansion of internet to the county.