CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Broadband expansion is slowly but surely making progress in the Mountain State.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approved the West Virginia state proposal last December for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s office reported that West Virginia is receiving nearly $546 million for 142 deployment projects and will bring service to 73,044 unserved and underserved locations across the state with this federal funding.
The BEAD program is a $42.45 billion state grant program authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. States were allocated funding to deploy or upgrade high-speed internet networks to ensure that everyone has access to reliable, affordable, high-speed Internet service.
This broadband expansion project must align with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a 1970 law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental effects of their proposed actions.
During a Thursday progress update meeting, a council member, State Senator Robbie Morris, R-Randolph, expressed concern that companies might not put down high-fiber lines for another two years.
“Even with the streamlining and everything involved with NEPA, depending upon that time frame and when that stuff would be done,” Morris said, “Even if we streamline and make it as efficient as possible, I’m concerned, would that mean that construction is likely not to start until 2028, with all the hoops we have to jump through?”
West Virginia Economic Development Director of Broadband Kelly Workman told Morris she believes next year is more likely.
“I think it will be a streamlined process,” Workman said. “There are some projects that, if they do have involvement by those federal agencies that I mentioned, that may take a little bit longer. Some of the projects that are more straightforward, maybe some of the smaller projects can get through that process. We have some work to do related to the connection between NEPA and other permitting.”
“There’s only so much work that can be done prior to the NEPA clearance,” Workman continued. “And then once you have the NEPA clearance, you can begin rolling trucks, you can begin work on poles. What that means is that there are some complexities regarding the pole attachment process and Make Ready Work. So, what Make Ready work can occur prior to that NEPA clearance? We’ve already identified the fact that we need to work with the Thrasher Group and with Aligned and KPMG to develop a flow chart as to how the ISPs [Internet Service Providers] and our agency can navigate that process.”
Make Ready work deals with existing lines and poles, moving them around if necessary to accommodate additional attachments from Internet Service Providers.
Morris still shared some doubts about the timeline.
“That was part of my concern, is that it’s my understanding that the Make Ready work can’t begin until the NEPA process is completed,” Morris said. “When you add the impossibly long ordeal, having to get permits and the Make Ready work completed on top of NEPA, that’s why what I mean actual work starting, to have ISPs actually hanging fiber and connecting homes and all that, that process not starting for well over a year is my concern on that.”
Workman replied that there are still actions that can be taken.
“NTIA has identified certain aspects of Make Ready that can be completed prior to the NEPA clearance,” Workman explained. “That would include your soft costs, design, you can ride the routes, you can take pictures, you can complete your engineering. You can do everything short of sending crews out to complete actual physical work.”
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito first announced the state had received approval for $1.2 billion in BEAD funding in 2023 but the Trump administration last year announced a “rigorous review” of the BEAD program, leading to a delay and some restructuring that was put in place last June. Upon West Virginia completing its reapplication, the NTIA approved the new funding total of $545,692,254 last December.
Workman said that, for now, the main priority is obtaining the NEPA clearance as soon as possible. After that, Workman said coordination begins between the broadband council and pole owners FirstEnergy, AEP, and Frontier. She noted that there are many moving parts. With pole owners and NEPA standards on different timelines, she said the work is cut out for her.
“Some of the policies that are currently in place will make it very difficult for us to coordinate,” Workman said. “For instance, I can identify one area that we know we need to address, and that is a requirement by FirstEnergy that pole Make Ready engineering needs to be done 30 days before Make Ready. So, if we are awaiting a NEPA clearance and that 30-day window passes, we need to identify some way to recertify that design, restart that 30 days, or ask for some type of accommodation that extends it to 90 days or 120 days, with some revision necessary.”
“It is going to require a significant amount of coordination,” Workman admitted. “And we’re hopeful we can continue to work with the Public Service Commission and the pole liners to address those areas that we’re already seeing as potential bottlenecks and we believe through that roundtable process that everyone can work together and reach some workable solutions.”
MetroNews reported last December that numbers show West Virginia is the third least connected state in the U.S., but it is growing in connectivity at a faster rate than most other states. BEAD funding is expected to further improve those numbers.
The report showed growth in broadband, the number of locations with fiber. There were just more than 200,000 locations with fiber in 2019 and that grew to 693,000 locations in 2024 representing a 245 percent increase in fiber locations in the last five years,
Download speeds have increased by 83 percent since 2022 while upload speeds have increased by 37 percent during that same time.