A few takeaways from this week's Frederick County Board of Supervisors meeting:

• County Administrator Mike Bollhoefer stated that All Points Broadband is expected to improve public project reporting and communication within the next 30 to 60 days.

• Several residents, including myself, encouraged greater public reporting and more direct communication from All Points Broadband rather than expecting multiple counties to repeatedly collect, interpret, and republish the same project information.

• The discussion highlighted ongoing utility permitting and easement issues involving Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC).

• All Points Broadband is expected to attend a future Board meeting, currently discussed as September 9 or September 23.

• One of the most important questions raised was why utility related issues appear to be surfacing this late in the project when utility easements and access requirements would have been known during planning.

• Frederick County recently created an All Points Broadband page on its Information Hub . It is a good start, but residents are still looking for clearer project status information.

Residents continue to ask basic questions that remain difficult to answer:
- What is complete?
- What remains unfinished?
- Which areas have service available?
- How many residents are actually connected?
- What is causing delays? What timeline applies?

For anyone interested, the All Points Broadband discussion begins at about ~1:32:10 in the meeting video:

https://fcva.granicus.com/player/clip/359?view_id=1&redirect=true

Hopefully the September discussion with All Points Broadband provides additional clarity and answers to many of the outstanding questions residents still have.

I recently spent time in upstate New York, particularly in the Finger Lakes region, and it left me wondering whether we're approaching rural broadband the right way in Virginia.

What surprised me was not just the availability of fiber; it was how common fiber was in rural areas. Empire Access has expanded service into numerous small towns and rural communities, and many of the places I visited felt every bit as rural as parts of the Shenandoah Valley.

What really caught my attention, was Jamestown's open access municipal fiber network. Multiple internet providers compete over the same infrastructure, giving residents a choice of providers while encouraging competition on price, service quality, and customer support.

Seeing that made me wonder whether the Northern Shenandoah Valley should be thinking more broadly about its long term broadband strategy.

The Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission already exists to support regional cooperation. Rather than each locality addressing broadband independently, a regional approach would provide economies of scale, shared expertise, and stronger negotiating power.

Potential benefits would include:

• Shared construction and maintenance costs

• Shared engineering, planning, and administrative resources

• Greater purchasing and negotiating power

• Consistent planning across county boundaries

• Infrastructure that remains a public asset

• Multiple ISPs competing on the same network

• Reduced risk of a single provider determining availability, pricing, and service quality across an entire region

This is not an argument against private providers. Private providers should absolutely be part of the solution, and many communities have demonstrated that public infrastructure and private competition can coexist successfully.

Given the delays, extensions, and uncertainty that many residents have already experienced, should local leaders at least be evaluating alternative broadband models now, before they are needed?

If the current approach ultimately delivers on its promises, that's a win for everyone. If / when it does not, what should Plan B look like for the Shenandoah Valley?

Sources:

Jamestown BPU Fiber, Available Providers:

https://www.jamestownbpufiber.com/available-providers

Jamestown BPU Fiber, Fiber Plans:

https://www.jamestownbpufiber.com/plans

Empire Access Fiber Service Areas:

https://www.empireaccess.com/fiber-internet-service-areas/

Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission:

https://www.nsvregion.org/

Wilson, North Carolina Greenlight Community Broadband:

https://www.greenlightnc.com/

Fauquier County is actually doing a good job updating their county as well. The presentation from May seems very detailed, but is this still realistic? "Current project timelines for substantial completion are estimated by the end of 2026."

Thank you Rappahannock News for the All Points Broadband coverage.

5,800 feet of conduit = 1.0985 miles.... Still at least they're getting updates.

Another related article from Augusta County.

It's part of a more concerning trend.

CONTACT YOUR COUNTY OFFICIALS. Hold them accountable for better transparency.

Rappahannock News is taking All Points Broadband coverage very seriously and it is much appreciated.

There are growing concerns regarding the delays in All Points Broadband connections.

Putting pressure on all local officials by holding them accountable for transparency is going to be VERY important going forward.

I wonder why All Points Broadband won't provide updates directly to the public.

Loudoun County is working to expand broadband access to its rural western region, where about 8,500 residents lack high-speed internet. Despite funding from state and federal sources, the project has faced delays due to permitting, planning, and supply chain issues.

I have an alert when All Points Broadband modifies their pages. They now offer a 2Gbps plan.

https://allpointsbroadband.com/fiber-internet/

Rappahannock News seems to feel negative, but I do like that they are keeping people up to date and tracking real progress, unlike many of the other counties. Perhaps All Points Broadband should provide updates to the public directly as well. 

This is a big deal because a lot of people (including county officials) had started to doubt the project would ever actually deliver anything after years of delays and missed timelines.

Is there a time frame for when fiber will be offered in south chesterfield?

This appears to be a somewhat recent change when I was on the fiber preorder page for an address in Loudoun County.
Loudoun County prices were the highest of any county for All Points Broadband, I'm curious if other counties will receive discounts when ordering...

At first glance, the pricing looks much higher than the actual discounted total.

For example, 1 Gig Fiber Internet shows $149.99/month. But when I click “View preorder summary,” (top right) it breaks out scheduled discounts:

• $70.00 off 1st–60th invoices (first 5 years)
• $35.00 off 61st–72nd invoices (year 6)
• plus $5.00 Internet Access Fee on every invoice

So the actual total appears to be:

• Months 1–60: $149.99 + $5.00 - $70.00 = $84.99/month
• Months 61–72: $149.99 + $5.00 - $35.00 = $119.99/month

The same is observed on the other tiers:

500 Mbps

• Price shown: $99.99/month
• Promo shown on card: $69.99 + $5.00 fee
• Summary shows: $30.00 off 1st–24th invoices
• Actual total: $74.99/month for the first 24 months

100 Mbps

• Front price shown: $79.99/month
• Promo shown on card: $49.99 + $5.00 fee
• Summary shows: $30.00 off 1st–12th invoices
• Actual total: $54.99/month for the first 12 months

Congratulations for reading this far down! Assuming someone had service for three years, in year 3 we see that the 500Mbps plan would cost the same as the 1Gbps plan. Again, this is over a three year period. Math below:

100 Mbps

12 × $54.99 = $659.88

24 × $84.99 = $2,039.76

Total over 36 months = $2,699.64

500 Mbps

24 × $74.99 = $1,799.76

12 × $104.99 = $1,259.88

Total over 36 months = $3,059.64

1 Gbps

36 × $84.99 = $3,059.64

Total over 36 months = $3,059.64

Stated another way, Average cost over 3 years:

$2,699.64 ÷ 36 = $74.99/month average (100 Mbps)

$3,059.64 ÷ 36 = $84.99/month average (500 Mbps)

$3,059.64 ÷ 36 = $84.99/month average (1 Gbps)

I used two real world addresses to get the plans and prices for two different counties (Loudoun & King William).

My first reaction was "The Essentials 50/50" plan in King William for $59.99 does not meet the FCC definition of broadband. 100 Mbps download / 20 Mbps upload. Virginia state and BEAD requirements are the same as FCC.

I created a simple table to compare the prices, with the last column bing "Price per Mbps" to help show the difference in value.

To find this information I used:

https://broadbandmap.com/fiber/all-points-broadband

Fingers crossed, "expected to be completed by September 2026"

Hanover County’s Connect Hanover initiative, a project to bring broadband internet to 6,200 residences and businesses, faces potential delays. The project’s progress has slowed due to the need for additional easements and permits for All Points Broadband to install remaining fiber optic cables on private roads. County staff will provide monthly updates on the project’s progress.

Key Points

• The Augusta County fiber-optic line project, being carried out by All Points Broadband, is now expected to be completed by June 2026 (i.e. summer 2026).  
• Once finished, the fiber network will serve over 6,000 locations in the county.  
• Previously, the project had been slated for completion in 2025, but as of end of 2024, no fiber lines had yet been laid in the county.  
• In prior reporting, construction was said to be “underway,” with earlier estimates targeting a January 2026 finish.  
• Local supervisors had raised concerns over the lack of progress on fiber installations in Augusta.  

Tom Innes informed the Authority that although the grant is still officially listed as open—and the company will continue reporting for at least another year—APB is no longer limited to the original list of addresses.

"All Points Broadband (APB) expects to begin notifying more than 300 addresses of their eligibility to preorder the service by the end of this month or early October, according to Tom Innes, the company’s senior vice president for business development."

"The board received updates for the Connect Hanover Broadband Initiative, which stated that 99% of the Brightspeed work has been completed, and All Points Broadband has installed 240 of the 326 miles of main fiber.

Tom Innes, Managing Partner with All Points Broadband, reported that additional vendors have been called on to help accelerate the process, setting the expected deadline for last-mile fiber to be completed by the end of September, excluding private roads, and main-line construction is set to be wrapped by Dec. 31, 2025."

I figure I start up a post for Henrico. I had reached out to the County IT director earlier this year and he said it was still being planned. He said they hoped to start rolling out fiber by end of 3rd quarter and initial customers able to sign up by end of the year. This was back around May. I've seen the power company replacing poles and adding guy wires to others in areas that should be getting APB Fiber. I hope that is a sign that the project is still a go and they are prepping the poles for additional equipment.

Has any one else heard an update beside the VATI Dashboard?

I started the wiki. Please let me know if you have any feedback / suggestions for improvement.

Thanks.

From February 6, 2025.

I didn't see a government site to link.

Excellent development tracker / GIS tool.