Isle of Wight County’s Planning Commission is recommending approval of a broadband internet antenna array proposed for an acre of land off Old Stage Highway.

The decision comes more than a year after the project was first proposed.

VB Edge LLC, a subsidiary of Boca Raton, Florida-based Vertical Bridge, published a public notice in the Times’ July 31 edition stating the company planned to erect “an array of one to six structures no greater than 25 feet in height” near 7094 Old Stage Highway. A similar announcement was published in January 2024.

A conditional use permit application that Syracuse, New York-based Pyramid Network Services and landowners Elizabeth Chabot, Joseph Epps and Deborah Epps Dashiell submitted in October states the site would consist of five 12-foot-tall ground-mounted antennas that would provide high-speed internet to subscribers in unserved and underserved areas of the county.

County staff said a specific radius that would be served by the antennas has not been provided.

Erin Lane, project director for Vertical Bridge, said Pyramid is handling the application on Vertical Bridge’s behalf.

According to a report by county staff, the antennas would communicate with low-orbit satellites. The 4,424-square-foot compound would be surrounded by a 6-foot-tall fence and landscaping, and be set back roughly 775 feet from the road and 1,100 feet from the nearest residence.

The site is part of a nearly 240-acre farm. The remaining acreage would continue to be farmed, according to Dashiell. She said the existing topography and planned landscaping would largely obscure the site from the view of passing motorists.

Dashiell said her family currently doesn’t have reliable internet service.

“We can’t even stream a TV show at the house we’re on now with Dish, so this would not just benefit me … it would benefit all of the people in our area. It is a great need in our community,” she said.

Vertical Bridge, according to its website, is the largest private owner and operator of communications infrastructure in the United States and has more than 500,000 owned and leased sites nationwide, including wireless and broadcast towers. Its wireless carrier partners include in-flight broadband provider Gogo, TDS Telecom, US Cellular, Cellular One, Boost Mobile, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

The Planning Commission’s recommendation for approval of the permit passed unanimously. The matter will advance to county supervisors for a public hearing and possible vote on April 17.

It’s the latest in a series of recent projects to expand broadband availability to rural areas that lack connectivity.

Isle of Wight County is separately partnering with Charter Communications, the area’s dominant internet service provider, on a $37 million regional expansion of high-speed internet availability across the rural areas of Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the city of Suffolk that’s on track to be completed this summer. In 2022, Sites Unlimited Inc. pitched Smithfield town officials on the idea of placing a Verizon cellular tower in the Pinewood Heights neighborhood-turned-industrial park behind Smithfield Foods’ meatpacking plant, though that proposed tower remains in limbo. Surry County achieved universal fiber-to-the-home availability in 2022 by partnering with Dominion Energy and Prince George Electric Cooperative subsidiary Ruralband.