Who is sponsoring this work?

Our funding partners include the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), NASA and the US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA) plus our local counties of Accomack and Northampton.

Will this be an open access network?

Any services the Authority offers would be on an open access basis. We are a public authority established under the Virginia Wireless Service Authorities Act. That Act requires that our activities be governed by Chapter 15, Title 56 regarding public authorities offering communication services, which in Paragraph 56-484-7.1 B states as follows:

Each county, city, town, electric commission or board, industrial development authority, or economic development authority that provides communications services pursuant to this article shall provide nondiscriminatory access to for-profit providers of communications services on a first-come, first-served basis to rights-of-way, poles, conduits or other permanent distribution facilities owned, leased or operated by the county, city, town, electric commission or board, industrial development authority, or economic development authority unless the facilities have insufficient capacity for such access and additional capacity cannot reasonably be added to the facilities.

Will the government begin selling Internet and phone service to us?

The Broadband Authority is currently evaluating a variety of business models, but the local governments (Accomack and Northampton counties) have indicated they do not intend to sell any telecom services. It is likely that all residential and business services will be provided by private sector providers.

What is the timeline of the Eastern Shore Broadband Initiative?

The Broadband Initiative is made up of three major projects. As of October, we are in Engineering for the Backbone running across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel along the railway to Wallops and Route 175 in the North. These are two projects of the Fiber Optic Backbone and are expected to begin construction in January 2009.
The other major project is the Last Mile or Community Networks which is currently in design. Construction of the first parts of these networks is expected to begin in Spring 2009.
The full network is anticipated to be complete by 2012.