County-wide Firefly broadband project nearing completion

Appomattox County is inching closer to universal broadband connection thanks to Firefly Fiber and Central Virginia Electric Cooperative (CVEC).

At the Appomattox County Board of Supervisors meeting held Nov. 20, CVEC Key Accounts Representative Galen Creekmore gave an update on the project, including plans for another Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI) Grant in 2024. The county and Firefly first partnered on a large state-funded regional grant in 2022.

“We’re coming back this year into that same grant program, to fill in gaps that were left that were essentially ineligible locations previously,” Creekmore said. “We came to you years ago and said we want to provide universal service to the county, and now we’ve been able to come back and notice a few freckles, as you might call them, mainly along the Route 460 corridor.”

Creekmore said that about 30 miles of fiber is being built per week, along with about 200 connections per week of in-home installation. Firefly is looking to increase to 250 connections per week. Two weeks ago, Firefly, which first began in Appomattox County, celebrated a milestone of 25,000 total connections as a business.

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