A regional fiber optic internet buildout remains on track to be completed this summer, Charter Communications recently told The Smithfield Times.

Charter, the area’s dominant internet service provider, broke ground in mid-2022 on a then-$37 million expansion of high-speed internet availability to the rural areas of Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the city of Suffolk.

As of March 31, Charter said it had completed more than 264 miles of underground fiber optic cabling in Isle of Wight County, which is participating alongside Southampton County and the city of Suffolk in the project.

In Southampton, nearly 745 miles had been completed. More than 355 miles in Suffolk had been completed by the same date.

A Charter spokesman declined to share how many customers in each locality had signed up for service through Charter in the previously unserved areas, citing “competitive reasons.”

The cost of a household broadband connection through Charter in Isle of Wight, Southampton and Suffolk, according to Charter’s website, ranges from $30 to $70 per month depending on the speed of the purchased connection.

Several years ago, Charter was awarded 1,839 Isle of Wight “passings” through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF, a federal program that allows internet service providers to compete for the right to provide service to specific census blocks. A passing refers to any physical home or business address able to be connected to Charter’s network.

Charter was awarded an additional 1,378 passings through the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative, or VATI, which in 2022 also contributed $22.7 million in state funding toward the project. Charter and the three participating localities are footing the remaining $14.5 million cost.

The Tidewater News reported in late July that Charter Director of Government Affairs Eric Collins had told Southampton’s Board of Supervisors that as of that month the cost had nearly doubled to over $60 million, and that Charter had footed the difference.

Collins told Isle of Wight’s supervisors last year that by beginning the RDOF and VATI buildouts concurrently, Charter was able to accelerate the timeline for the RDOF build to 36 months, down from the seven-year buildup the Federal Communications Commission had initially authorized.

An online map of the buildout progress developed by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, which was last updated in February, showed most areas covered by RDOF as having been “activated,” save for a few RDOF areas in Suffolk. 

Unlike neighboring Surry County, which in 2022 achieved universal fiber-to-the-home availability by partnering with Dominion Energy and Prince George Electric Cooperative subsidiary Ruralband, the Charter project is focused on extending fiber only to areas not presently served by cable modem.

Charter was awarded just over 3,200 total passings between RDOF and VATI in Isle of Wight. Ruralband, however, won the rights to provide broadband service to roughly 600 Isle of Wight homes in the vicinity of Rushmere near the Surry County line.

Residents of the three localities can see whether the Charter buildout will reach their home or business by plugging an address into the HRPDC’s interactive map, accessible at https://tinyurl.com/32wxnj3u.